Trivia for
Tonari no Totoro (1988)

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• On its original theatrical release in Japan, it was double-featured with Hotaru no haka (1988) as the film was believed to be too big a financial risk as a standalone release.
  
  
• Totoro actually comes from Mei mis-pronouncing Tororu which means troll in Japanese. This comes from a book Mei had read that turns out to be the Billy Goats Gruff as can be seen in the end sequence with mother with that book and if one looks closely it is seen to have a totoro on the cover.
  
  
• The names of the two girls, Satsuki and Mei are a play on the word May. "Satsuki" is an old Japanese word for May, and "Mei" is the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "May".
  
  

• The forest creatures and title characters of this movie got their name when Mei, the little girl who first sees them in the film, mispronounces the word "troll". At one point in the original Japanese language version, when Satsuki first finds Mei sleeping in the grove behind their house, Mei tells her sister she saw a "totoro". Satsuki replies, "Totoro, do you mean troll, from the storybook?" and Mei nods in agreement. This aspect of the story was left out of the 1993 Fox English version, probably because the difference between ""to-ro-ru" (the Japanese pronunciation of "troll") and "to-to-ro" would have been lost on English-speaking audiences. The quote is included in the 2006 Disney English version.
  
  
• Miyazaki originally conceived the characters Satsuki and Mei as a single girl. He wanted to add suspense to the latter half of the film, and he felt it wouldn't work with just a single girl, so he split her into two separate girls. The original girl had features of both Satsuki and Mei, and was halfway between the ages of Satsuki (8) and Mei (4).
  
  
• The film is partially autobiographical. When Miyazaki and his brothers were children, his mother suffered from spinal tuberculosis for nine years, and spent much of her time hospitalized. It is implied, yet never revealed in the film, that Satsuki and Mei's mother also suffers from tuberculosis. He once said the film would have been too painful for him to make if the two protagonists were boys instead of girls.
  
  
• The movie initially did not do well at the box office, and did not break even until about two years after the release when stuffed dolls based on the King Totoro character hit the shelves.
  
  
• King Totoro is the mascot for Miyazaki's studio, Studio Ghibli.
  
  
• During the 2005 World Expo in Japan, a classic Japanese house modeled after Satsuki and Mei's house, was built and opened to the public.
  
  
• The soot sprites also appear in Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001).
  
  
• When the Catbus's destination indicator switches to the hospital, the last kanji character is miswritten, with one of its parts backward and another upside down. The headlight-mouse next to it does a double-take.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Hayao Miyazaki] [flying] The Totoros fly on the top with Satsuki and Mei during the tree scene.
  
  

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