Totoro as a Religious Experience?

I'm not a particularly religious person. I don't identify myself as being of any religion, yet I do find some value in trying to study up on religious ideas a bit. I've come to be of the opinion that religion seems to occur in every society because being a human is difficult. You face problems and stress and difficulties throughout life and religion in its most virtuous forms tends to offer advice and parables and philosophy for coping with these difficulties.

It's with this insight, and with what little I know of Shinto, Tao, and Buddhism that I believe there's a certain eastern philosophy/religion exposition going on in My Neighbor Totoro. Shinto shrines appear throughout. There's a fox shrine at the bus stop where Satsuki first encounters the big Totoro, king of the forrest. There's also a shrine of figures that are the protector of children at the site where Mei's found. I get the sense that Totoro is a very Shinto-ish animistic figure. The encouragement from the adults in the film tends to further this observation. In class we mentioned that western parents tend to discourage non-scientific thinking, but we forget that many western parents do in fact encourage their children to believe the supernatural stories told in the bible (i.e. imaginary friends are fine as long as it's the biblical God or Jesus). Totoro offers comfort to troubled children that are missing something, that are internally conflicted, and who we see try to be stronger than they actually are throughout most of the film.

I argue that Mei and Satsuki do a pretty good and realistic job of not letting the audience, and maybe even themselves realize how much trauma they've experienced at the absence of their mother (though recall the mother isn't fooled as she mentions how sensitive Satsuki is near the end of the film). There's definitely tension building because we see it come to fruition in the exchange when Satsuki tortures Mei about her own fears that their mother might actually die. And still later, in a much more healthy and vulnerable release Satsuki finally allows herself to cry at the water pump to the granny. There are also clues to the tension throughout the first part of the film. The girls act strong and unafraid of the haunted house, but it's revealed that Mei still can't go to the bathroom on her own at night, and Satsuki seems genuinely disconcerted by Kenta's affirmation of the house being haunted! But supposedly she likes haunted houses, right???

This internal conflict within the sisters is the real primary conflict for the film, which is all too subtle yet more powerful than the tension Miyazaki adds with Mei's disappearance and possible drowning. I almost suspect that Mei getting lost was a device added because Miyazaki believed that the primary conflict wasn't overt and suspenseful enough for the movie to work as a conventional film. Also, could Mei being physically lost be a metaphor for her being spiritually lost?

Once you get the idea that the protagonists are themselves the real antagonists (internal conflict), I think the rest of the eastern religious philosophy starts to reveal itself. Such as the ideas in Buddhism that "irrational desire" causes suffering. The mother's illness isn't the antagonist, that's just a fact of life. Rather, the antagonist is the natural human resistance to these facts of life within Mei and Satsuki. The scene in the bathtub also seems to explore Buddhism's enlightened state of being 'awake' or 'lost in the moment.' I get the sense that Buddhism teaches that striving to enjoy life is futile...  such a longing for some abstract perfect life would just make you miserable - rather all you can do is simply enjoy the moment, enjoy now. And in the center of the storm the family manages to enjoy the moment even with the obvious absence of the mother in the bathtub (hence the awkward yet cute/charming shot of Mei's head barely obscuring the father's penis highlighting the fact that it should be the mother in the bathtub). They manage to enjoy the moment so much that it chases the soot spreaders out of the home and into the wind...

The wind is also very important which brings me to the Tao. Tao kind of means "the way." Sort of having a flexibility to go with the flow and adapt and remain in balance and harmony. I believe that the wind kind of represents the way in the film... Such as when Satsuki is interrupted by the wind in her task to collect fire wood. This might show how she's conflicted and again resistant to the facts of life. In that scene she's at odds with "the way." But then in the religious experience of taking flight upon Totoro's belly on the magic top they say "we are the wind" i.e. we are the way. At that moment they are going with the flow, are at peace, and have found release.

They also find release at the very end when the corn is delivered and they run into granny's embrace..  But like the previous releases of laughing in the tub or becoming the wind as they soar through the air with Totoro..  the process of becoming enlightened is an ongoing thing that they are sure to endure more of.

Miyazaki might assure us in that he says that's the last time the girls see Totoro. As Confucius said, "it's actually a troubling day when people need religion."

The Lovably Deplorable - Contradictions are Entertaining

There's something about contradictions in a single character that make those characters appealing and entertaining. This tension of repulsion and endearment is utilized to great success in such mainstream rappers as 2pac, Kanye West, and Eminem. But there's a certain version of the lovably deplorable character that is found in amazing extremes and with masterful execution in anime.

The best example I can think of to illustrate this is everyone's favorite 300 year old uninhibited ephebophile Happosai in Ranma 1/2. He proudly runs around stealing undergarments from high school girls and frequently cops a feel here and there as well. In fact, Happosai is a great master of martial arts but is rendered harmless if he goes too long without creeping out a young lady. For those who haven't seen Ranma 1/2 the description might leave you puzzled as to how he could be lovable or entertaining, but he is in a very powerful way.

Happosai enjoying his latest bounty of women's undergarments.

This archetype of lovably deplorable might be most masterfully executed by Rumiko Takahashi in Ranma 1/2 but I argue that it's this archetype that Miyazaki was probably working off of when he created Dyce from Future Boy Conan and Dola for Castly in the Sky. There's certainly the element of festival at play in both of these characters. Dyce's confused moral compass at one point leads him to attempt to burn our hero Conan alive while he sleeps, but if his lovable deplorability doesn't allow us to excuse his actions in real-time we've certainly forgiven him by the final episode when we cheerfully celebrate his marriage to Monsley.

Dola too seems to have qualities we ought to find unforgivable or revolting. She values self enrichment over the safety of Pazu and Sheeta early in the film. Rationally and logically, just the fact that she's a pirate should disqualify her from the lovable status she has in our hearts by the end of the film. But it's this contradiction that makes her all the more entertaining and endearing.

Perhaps her character design itself highlights contradiction and absurdity. Her pink braids are awkward and jut out of her hair visibly portraying the absurdity of her femininity. This is juxtaposed with Sheeta's braids which are very cute and feminine in a more proper sense. Dola also has morbidly huge breasts which again portray her femininity as a lovable absurdity or contradiction. At the end of the film when she grabs Sheeta and hugs her, the audience might wince as Sheeta is suffocated between her mammoth mammaries. But our wince is not without a sense humor and acceptance... what may be uncomfortable and awkward about that hug only highlights what we've come to love about Dola. The objectionable is a yin to the yang of enjoyment.

These sorts of characters are great fun and ridiculously entertaining..  and there's certainly a delicate comedic genius required to perfect them and pull them off. Miyazaki may not give us the most classic examples but he's definitely competent. This and many other fun/adventurous elements make Castle in the Sky a nice followup to the much more heavy and challenging Nausicaa. Miyazaki doesn't abandon his didacticism at all in Castle in the Sky but he allows us to not care and just have fun if we want.

Arms Outstretched

There're few things more exhilarating than the feeling of being engulfed in wind. It's among the deepest experiences we have as humans within the natural world. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are with an enchantment with the wind. I remember seeing one of those mini-tornados twist through and kick-up leaves in my Kindergarten, and all the kids chasing it. Or how about the first time you felt a wind so strong you thought you could just lay into it and not fall down? If you're like me, you just couldn't help but hold your arms outstretched like bird wings lifting your spirits into flight.

I suspect that if you ask random people what comes to mind with the image of outstretched arms it'll be something like that special feeling of being engulfed in wind. Or something else spiritual or religious, possibly the image of Jesus Christ dying for humanity's sins on the cross. When you google image search "outstretched arms" you get page after page of images along these lines.

Nausicaa assumes this pose twice in the film. Once when she appears as a (telepathic?) vision to Asbel compelling him to stop his attack.

Then once again as she descends upon the hovercraft hauling the baby omu. She's in this position as she conjures up an image of Lastelle for the Pejite man firing at her. She's also in this position as she's crucified by bullets that rip through her shoulder and ankle. It's interesting to note, too, how much her body mirrors the highly stylized image of a bird adorning her Pejiteian tunic.

Wind is a component of flight, and flight is a theme used throughout Miyazaki's catalog. Perhaps he reserved this iconic pose of the human body in Nausicaa for some of the most dramatic moments to help get across this sense of what wind and flight represent. The wind in the valley is a source of purity from the toxins as it blows in from the sea. In that sense it's literally a lifeline to the small civilization. In that sense, arms outstretched in the wind would be a literal embrace of life.. Peace? Freedom? Hope? When you consider what Nausicaa means for humanity - perhaps she is that pose, and that pose is Nausicaa.

The position is also seen at the children's peace memorial at Hiroshima. Here Sadako's arms are in clear reference to the wings of the paper crane, and the crane represents a wish for peace in the world. This message of hope is juxtaposed with the unbearably sad story of Sadako Sasaki. I can't help but notice a certain parallel with Nausicaa and Lastelle: a post apocalyptic shojo wise beyond her years becoming a martyr for peace.

During the nadir of the film, when it seems all hope is lost and Obaba laments to the children that death may be immanent, it's worth noting that wind is completely gone and the air is still and "heavy with anger." Perhaps it's Gaia or the Wind God Nausicaa prays to disapproving of or abandoning the scene? Leaving the fate of humankind in the hands of only those who can control it? Perhaps it's just an artistic way of expressing there's no room at all for the high spirits wind and flight evokes? Or perhaps all the wind in the valley at that moment is lent to Nausiccaa?

At the risk of reading into it too deeply, if spreading your arms like wings is freedom and elation, having one's arms shackled is an incredibly depressing contrast. Is such symbolism at work when Nausicaa releases Lastelle's dead arms? Further does that lend more meaning to the pose as she presents herself as a Lastelle lookalike to Asbel and the other Pejite man with outstretched arms?

After just one viewing of Nausicaa, the image of Nausicaa with outstretched arms stayed with me. It might have been some of the most overt cinematic language placed in the film. But it wasn't until repeated viewing that I begin to consider it in the context of the role wind plays in the film as well as Nausicaa's role as a Massiah who dies for humankind and is then resurrected.

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One other device I'd like to mention is the role Teto plays in helping us gain insight into Nausicaa's character. The first exchange with the fox-squirrel early in the film makes us think Nausicaa has a way of disarming animals.. But later when she says to Kushana, "What are you afraid of? You're just like a scared fox-squirrel." We understand that Nausicaa has insight into not just animals but humans as well. How often is human aggression an act of fear/insecurity rather than something more selfish and sinister? Do we bear a fruitless resistance to change/reality/nature rather than a courageous flexibility and harmony with whatever comes our way? If a viewer had thought that her act of saving Kushana from the crashing airplane was a foolish and possibly treasonous act of aiding and abetting of the enemy, we realize instead the omnipotent wisdom behind that act, with just the analogy of calming Teto.

I like how they're similarly colored, too. Primarily golden with green accents (Teto's eyes, Kushana's jewelry and eyes)

The Valley of the Wind, High Harbor, and Hiroshima Peace Memorial

Upon comparing the folly of the Tolmekians to the wisdom of the people of the Valley of the Wind.. one of the people from the valley speculates, and I paraphrase,

"Fire can destroy a forest in a day, while it takes a century for water and wind to create one. We prefer the ways of the water and the wind."

It fits well within the action of the film, but this sentiment is as old as the Tao Te Ching, and has been present in the Tao-influenced "far east" flavors of Buddhism. The iconic image of a monk contemplating the metaphor of of a stream of water is powerful (i.e. Siddartha). Fire, dynamite, the atomic bomb.. can achieve quite a lot in a short amount of time. But if you don't rush, lie low, remain steady, sure, flexible, humble, you can achieve far more greatness over time and your efforts are more effective and you minimize the risk of your efforts blowing up in your face in unexpected and horrible ways.

Thusly the valley fended off the earth's hostility against them by slowly, calmly, and methodically disposing of any toxins that encroached upon them. The Tolmekians and Pejites on the other hand, succumbed to the folly of power and brute force symbolized in the giant apocalyptic monster.

There's an interesting parallel to Future Boy Conan, I'm up to episode 23 out of 26.. But even in the first episode there's an interesting exchange wherein Monsley lashes out in anger and resentment towards Conan's grandfather for being a part of the generation that created the apocalypse. For the viewer the irony is clear.. she's the one still operating under the destructive memes - but is utilizing the past destruction she failed to learn from as justification for her misdeeds.

There's of course also a parallel between the wisdom of the Valley of the Wind and Conan's High Harbor. The people in High Harbor built a sustainable civilization in harmony with nature. The heros in Future Boy Conan were much like the heros in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind; both offered an alternative wiser future for humanity with enlightened peaceful calm methodical conservative memes.

But that exchange with Monsley and Grandpa I still think about. I can't help, if Miyazaki would forgive me, putting an imagined Miyazaki in Monsley's shoes. Miyazaki's father worked towards the Japanese war effort supplying rudders for aircraft. The war ended when he was still a toddler but his formative years coincided with the Allied/US occupation of Japan. I can't help but imagine Monsley's misguided anger and later redemption (oddly enough through a little boy's naive trust) as being autobiographical? What sort of resentment towards their fathers generation might have burdened Miyazaki's generation? Or in lieu of resentment, what potential lies in Miyazaki's generation for greater understanding, redemption, and growth beyond the errors of their fathers?

Being educated in typical K-12 public schools in California, my overall sense of the atomic bombs was that the Japanese were victims of an unjustifiable crime against humanity.. Yet what I found at the peace memorial in Hiroshima really moved me and stood in poignant contrast to that mode of thought. There wasn't a hint of victimhood anywhere. In fact, there was a sense of Japanese culpability. Written beside the monument that protectively sheltered the names of the victims was the sentiment, "rest in peace, for we will never repeat the error." Nearby was a beautiful Korean drum. As Korea had suffered "cultural genocide" under Japanese rule, the drum really showed a commitment towards real peace.. Here they were celebrating Koreanness at the site of unimaginable Japanese pain - as though they bandaged their deep wound with the virtues of their old enemy - the same virtues they once sought to dominate or destroy. It really seemed that the Japanese had grown in a way that other societies hadn't in the wake of WWII (Japanese supercomputers simulate the weather - our supercomputers simulate weaponry)... it's as though they realized the victim mentality just begats more violence... true peace requires an unprecedented shift in public consciousness. An almost superhuman ability to see a bigger truth or justice... Nausicaa was regrettably drawn to kill operating under traditional memes of justice and revenge. One might also extend some sympathy for the Pejites.. who were luring the omu into The Valley in retaliation for the brutality they suffered under the Tolmekians... a crime born out of victimhood.

We followed 9/11 with two wars that continue today. The war drum was beat. Americans felt victimized and justified in pursuing a vague, elusive "war on terrorism." Anybody that spent a moment wondering if there was room for US culpability was regarded as unpatriotic, almost monstrous. Yet some intelligence experts believe that US response has just stirred up more anti-US sentiment making us even less secure than we were in 2001 from terrorism. Not only that, but the subsequent conflicts have surely resulted in far more death and suffering among innocent people than the event that sparked them. I posit that the US foreign policy in the middle east could benefit from a shift from the ways of fire to that of water and wind.

*****Wisdom from 6th century BC