TOTORO

I believe all you know "Tonarino Totoro" filmed by Hayao Miyazaki. I saw it tends of time, but this time I saw it in English for studying. I' ve already seen it many times before, so I knew the story and the lines they speaking almost all. Therefore it was easy to understand.

"Tonari no Totoro" is a fantasy. The heroines of this story are Mai who is about 5 year old girl, full of curiosity, and cheerfully, and Satsuki who is about 11 year old girl, May's sister, smart, reliable and full of curiosity as well. Their mother was disease and they live with their father in a big old house (It's called haunted house) they just moved to. There was very beautiful scene!! There were lots of trees, natures, and stream...In there Mai and Satsuki met Totoro, a king of forests. Totoro has a big mouths, small eyes and noses, he's cute!! There are middle Totoro and small Totoro as well. They can't be seen by adults, only kids can see them. One day, Mai and Satsuki got the news which their mother couldn't come back to their house. She supposed to have short holiday at home on the weekend. Mai and Satsuki had a little argument because Mai couldn't understand why her mother couldn't come back . Then Mai decided to go to her hospital to bring a scorn which she picked up for her mother. But it took 3 hours from Mai's house to mother's hospital even for grown men. Mai got lost. Satsuki asked Totoro to help to find Mai. And Nekobasu (a cat's bus) which is a ride for Totoro took Satsuki to Mai and took Satsuki and Mai to their mother's hospital. It's very heart warming, if you haven't seen yet, you should see it!!

I found some differences between the story in Japanese and the story in English.

At first, do you know what 'makkurokurosuke' in English? It's 'dush bunny'. Sounds

strange, isn't it?

And it is the key word of opening song,'Aruko'( le't's walk) turn to be 'Hey, let's go♪Hey, let's go♪' I hoped it wasn't changing.

I was surprised that when Satsuki went to school, Mai and father said 'Itte rasshay.' in Japanese turned to be in English, they said,' Thanks for saying good bye!' I know they don't have a greeting when they go out in English like as 'Itte kimasu' and 'Itte rasshay' in Japanese. So, bit surprised.

Another thing I noticed it seemed to be interesting is that;do you know this scene that Mai and Satsuki let grew plants up with Totoro at night and in the morning, plants were not as they saw at night, but they surey sprout? And they shouted around plants, "Yume dakedo, Yume jya nakatta!!' again and again. In English, hey said, "it was only dream, it wasn't a dream."Mmm, in Japanese, these lines are very catchy.

But in English, they are not. And in English, there were lots of expressions such as 'oh','ow', 'raar', 'mm-hmm', 'ah', 'yay!', 'hee', 'whoo', 'ya!', 'rahhrr!', 'aah', 'hmm,' 'uh-huh', mmreowr'and so on. So much funny expressions! I can't count all of them!!

Other things I found is calling name. There are no expression such as 'One-chan' 'Mai-chan' and 'Micchyan (Satsuki's friend's nickname)' in English. Therefore, Mai called Satsuki 'sis'or 'Satsuki'(in Japanese Mai called Satuki 'One-chan'. Kanta's grandmother called Mai 'Mai' (in Japanese, she called Mai 'Mai- chan'). It sounds strange Mai called Satsuki calls so. And there is a snece like that; during Satsuki was looking for Mai, trying to go to hospital but got lost, and Kanta was running toward to Satsuki by bike and told Satsuki to go back and he was going to hospital instead of Satsuki. Kanta was running calling Satsuki, and Satsuki shouted his nick name' Kan-chan'. This scene is one of my favourite because at first they didn't get along with, but they were interested in each other and Satsuki first called'Kan-chan' in this scene. However, in English, Satsuki called him'Kanta'. Mmm, freiendly feeling does not come from this scene in English...

On the other hand, English has another way to express friendly. For example,Kanta's grandmother said, 'Our Mai' or 'Little Mai'. Other Example is like that; there was a scene that Kanta's grandmother encourage Satsuki who was very worried her mother might be died. She said to Satsuki, "Your mother will be alright. ' Your nanny' will be with you." It sounds more friendly.

Oh I wonder that if foreign people see this movie, and see Mai and Satsuki were eating low non-cut cucumbers. Foreign people don't have such a custom, don't they?

It is so different comparing Japanese and English translation. Both of languages have pros and cons. The purpose of seeing this movie was listening English, but I also can learn about their differences, pros and cons and re-think Japanese is a wonderful language.