Many are familiar with My Neighbor Totoro, a classic Japanese anime film and one of the most popular. Pretty much anyone who is a fan of the genre has seen it. There are so many reasons to love it, whether for its imaginative, whimsical characters, its stunning animation, or for the feelings of nostalgic adventure, discovery, freedom, or so many others. For me, it gives me a unique sense of abstract nostalgia. There’s no particular scene, or event, or character that reminds me of something from when I was younger, but rather the emotions associated with childhood. There are so many wonderful things that we take more and more for granted as we grow older, and some things that we lose as we grow older like our childhood imagination. On the surface, the film appears like a children’s movie with cute playful characters that don’t talk and just fly around making magical things happen, but the film goes so much deeper. While it does give me that wonderful feeling of being a child again, it also reminds me of how much bigger the world feels at that age, and how powerless you feel compared to adults. It also shows me how seeming well-intentioned actions can end up causing others to stress and even anguish as a result. All in all, it’s a movie for all ages that provides endless wisdom and insight while feeling both extremely familiar yet in a world of its own at the same time.