The real meaning behind my neighbor totoro?

Question

i was talking to a friend who has read somewere that the real meaning behind this film is that totoro is a death god (shinigami) and that when mays shoe is found in the pond it really is hers and satsuki just dosent want to beleve and then she finds totoro and finds mais spirit and something else? is this true? i mean i hop not seeing as though it was such a cute and happy story

Answer 1

 Creepy but Studio Ghibli's PR has already confirmed it has nothing to do with the murder case. The movie is based on Hayao Miyazaki's childhood with his brother and his sick mother, but Miyazaki decided to use girls (instead of boys) to make it less personal.

Answer 2

this might be late, but thats totally not true. i thought that there are lots of convincing argments for it, and i thught it be kinda cool if totoro was a shinigami!! but im japanese and looked it up in the japanese sites and many of them said that it all really just started with this guys who spread rumors sayng it totoro is a shinigami. plus if it was, you think thered be more stories or pictures or something of it. And the main pic most people see of the creepy totoro is from a deviant art artist who drew it because he or she thought itd be a fun parody. and the issue with the coloring and shadows is only because ghibli was being kind of lazy.

Answer 3

Haha, actually yes. Your friend is right and so is Guest6179.
The movie is loosely based on something called the Sayama Incident.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayama_Incident)
Seriously, read it, it's creepy stuff.
Also, there's this, its someones blog post about the whole thing, where the connections are made for you, so you don't have to think to hard (also worth a look)http://my.opera.com/sukekomashi-gaijin/blog/2009/01/01/tonari-no-totoro

As for guest6179, your points are valid, but they're just changes that Miyazaki made to the story so that it could be turned into a child friendly anime. He rewrote history to give it a happy ending. Wouldn't be the first time a movie has done so. But I will say, its not the MEANING of the story, just the real story behind it.