Ehime and Totoro

"Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom." ~ Theodore Isaac Rubin


This video contains clips from the movie "My Neighbor Totoro" by Miyazaki Hayao. Hayao is famous for portraying the essence of the Japanese culture and land in his films (remember this spring break I went to the island that contains the Princess Mononoke Forest, and in my prefecture is the public bath house used as the model for the one in Spirited Away.)

Miyazaki's most famous, and arguably most beautiful in displaying/co-creating the Japanese hyper-real nostalgia, is My Neighbor Totoro. I'm posting the clips because this short video is a great tour around landscapes that literally come right out of my immediate surroundings.(The rice fields are now all planted). For all you people coming to Ehime soon, this video is a great preview. No doubt, all of Japan looks like this movie. But Ehime does in particular I think.

The music is by Tryo, a band I learned about years ago from one of my french exchange students in high school. I remember he only had one working lung. hmm. And interestingly, one of my students over here, who I turned onto Tryo, (he now has all of their albums), is the one who sent me this video. So, thanks be to him. And to one-lunged french exchange students, and to Tryo, and thanks be to Totoro, the cutest forest god in the world.

The story is about a family who moves to the country and the children discover the actual Spirit of the Forest living in their backyard.