My Neighbor Totoro:The “Beautiful Lie” and the “Potentially Unbeautiful Lie” Told by the Mother

“My Neighbor Totoro(Studio Ghibli Official)” is a 1988 animated feature film directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

This time, I want to think about a very impressive and beautiful scene in “My Neighbor Totoro”: “The mother combing Satsuki’s hair.” I believe that here, the mother tells a certain lie. What lie did the mother tell, and why did she tell it?

*This article is an English translation of the original Japanese article, “【となりのトトロ】お母さんがついた「美しい嘘」と「美しくないかもしれない嘘」“.

The Lie the Mother Told and Her Feelings

The Secret Story Behind the Scene’s Creation

The scene where the mother combs Satsuki’s hair is one that probably remains in the hearts of many who have seen “My Neighbor Totoro,” and director Hayao Miyazaki himself has spoken about the birth of this scene.

In “Ghibli Textbook 3: My Neighbor Totoro (ジブリの教科書3:となりのトトロ, in Japanese),” when asked why the protagonists are “sisters,” he states that if they were brothers, it would have been more “painful,” and he wouldn’t have been able to create it, continuing as follows:

“…My own relationship with my mother wasn’t as close as Satsuki’s. I was more self-conscious, and my mother was too, so even if I visited her in the hospital, we couldn’t just hug—in other words, it’s most natural that Satsuki is a little shy and doesn’t approach her right away. So, what would Satsuki’s mother do? …She’d probably comb her hair or something—I think she’s establishing a kind of skinship by doing so. That’s what supports Satsuki. Actually, there’s a real story like that. A production staff member, Kihara-kun, told me a story he had heard from a certain woman.”

(Original Text, in Japanese)
「……………僕自身と母親との関係てのは、あんなサツキみたいに親しいものじゃないですからね。もっと自意識過剰で、それはおふくろの方だってそうで、病院にお見舞いに行ったからって、抱きつくわけにも行かない—つまり、サツキがちょっとはずかしくってすぐ寄っていかないのが、もっともなんですね。そうすると、サツキのおふくろさんはどうするだろう……………たぶん髪の毛でもとかしてあげるんじゃないかな—そうすることによって一種のスキンシップを取ってると思うんです。それがサツキを支えているんですね。実は、そういう話が本当にあって、制作の木原くんがこういう話をきいたことがりますってある女性の話しをしてくれたんです。」

The “Kihara-kun” mentioned here is Hirokatsu Kihara, who was the production desk manager at the time and is famous for the “Kaidan Shin-Mimibukuro” series. The story above is detailed in Hirokatsu Kihara’s book “Our Totoro – Hayao Miyazaki and the Era of ‘My Neighbor Totoro'(ふたりのトトロ-宮崎駿と『となりのトトロ』の時代, in Japanese).”

It was a story Kihara heard from a close friend in high school—along with ghost stories. The woman’s mother had been hospitalized for a long time, and she had only ever met her at her hospital bed. Still, when she went to the hospital, her mother would brush her short hair over and over again. Thanks to that experience, she said she never forgot her mother’s love. And that woman

“So even though I had only one parent, and was often bullied for it, I never felt lonely, and I never once went astray,” she said, laughing proudly.

Upon hearing this story, director Miyazaki murmured, “That’s a nice story.”

It is already a moving scene, but hearing that it is based on Director Miyazaki’s own complex feelings for his mother and a true story makes the scene’s brilliance stand out even more.

However, perhaps because Director Miyazaki’s passions are so embedded in it, when I watch that scene as an adult, a demon inside me starts to whisper. It’s about the complex truth within Satsuki’s mother. What was she thinking at that moment as she combed Satsuki’s hair?

The Mother’s Lie

Now, let’s finally talk about “the mother’s lie.” It’s in the following conversation between the mother and Satsuki:

• Mother: “Wavy hair, just like mine when I was your age.”
• Satsuki: “Will it be like yours when I grow up?”
• Mother: “Probably. You take after your Mon.”

In this conversation, the lines “Just like mine when I was your age” and “You take after your Mon.” sound like lies to me. It’s not the most appropriate image, but let’s look at the two images below.

Actually, the moment right after the left image would be better, but Satsuki and her mother do seem to have similar foreheads. But what’s blatant is the similarity in hairstyle between Mei and the mother. Both part their hair in the middle, and in reality, Mei’s forehead is a spitting image of her mother’s.

Also, looking at the right, the father’s messy hair and Satsuki’s hair are exactly alike. The father is probably someone who has never cared about his hairstyle, and Satsuki is too busy to have time to fix her own hair. In other words, the hair of the two people in their most natural state is identical.

Furthermore, there is a scene like the one below where Satsuki writes a letter to her mother.

Isn’t it a good contrast with the image of her father engrossed in his own research? No matter how you look at it, “Satsuki looks like her father.” So why did the mother tell Satsuki that she resembled her?

Reason 1 for the Mother’s Lie: “A Beautiful Lie”

The most important part of the reason the mother lied is, of course, “because she knows Satsuki loves her very much.” To put it another way, “because she knows Satsuki wants to be like her.”

In the emergency situation of the Kusakabe family, with “a hospitalized self and a useless father,” the mother knows well what kind of situation her daughter Satsuki is in. And in such a situation, the words “You are like me” must have been the words Satsuki most wanted at that moment, giving her the highest form of self-affirmation. Frankly, the mother is hugging Satsuki while combing her hair.

Certainly, the mother lied—within the context of this article—but wasn’t it the greatest expression of love for her daughter, who cares more about her little sister’s hair than her own and does the housework in place of her useless father? And, combing her messy hair may have soothed Satsuki’s heart far more than an actual hug would have.

…And now, everyone. Satsuki’s hair is messy. This is what gives rise to the devil’s whisper inside me.

What on earth did the mother think when she saw that messy hair?

Reason 2 for the Mother’s Lie: “A Potentially Not-So-Beautiful Lie”

If we recall the hospital room at Shichikokuyama Hospital, everyone there is a woman. What would she have thought when her daughter with messy hair walked in? The mother probably thought for a moment, “Oh no.”

In other words, she probably thought she should have at least written a letter to her husband, who is completely useless in these matters, saying, “Please pay a little attention to Satsuki’s hair.” So why couldn’t Satsuki’s hair be messy?

Because Satsuki would be embarrassed?

No, that’s not it. I don’t think the thought that arose in the mother’s mind was something like that. I’ll just say this now, I’m about to say something extremely unpleasant about the mother’s thoughts at that moment.

Are you ready?

What the mother might have thought at that moment was, “I’m embarrassed to have the people around me see my daughter with such messy hair.“

In other words, when she said, “Still the same wavy hair. Just like mine when I was a child,” wasn’t she trying to communicate to the other patients around her that “my daughter’s hair is naturally wavy, not messy (unkempt)“? And I can’t help but think this is the reason she replied with the word “probably” to her daughter who asked with a beaming smile, “Will I be like you, Mom?”

It feels a bit sad for Satsuki, but the hospital is not where Satsuki lives; it’s where the mother lives. There’s no need to blame her for thinking something like this.

Let’s quote Director Miyazaki’s words once more here:

“…My own relationship with my mother wasn’t as close as Satsuki’s. I was more self-conscious, and my mother was too, so even if I visited her in the hospital, we couldn’t just hug—in other words, it’s most natural that Satsuki is a little shy and doesn’t approach her right away. So, what would Satsuki’s mother do? …She’d probably comb her hair or something—I think she’s establishing a kind of skinship by doing so. That’s what supports Satsuki.”

Of course, I’m taking a cynical view, and the fact that the scene is beautiful will absolutely not change. But I feel something in that scene that can’t just end there.

Summary of “The Lie the Mother Told”

To summarize the above,

is how it turns out. I have watched “My Neighbor Totoro” repeatedly since kindergarten, but as I get older, I think about various things. This might mean I’m moving further and further away from the creator’s intent, but I think it’s also proof that the characters in Miyazaki’s works are alive. Because they are living people, I find myself speculating about “the mother’s feelings,” which cannot be simply explained.

Appendix: The Father’s Resolve and Insanity

Well, this time we’ve been thinking about the story of “the mother and Satsuki,” but perhaps because I’m a man, I can’t just leave the father out.

When you watch “My Neighbor Totoro,” the father’s cluelessness, or rather his “uselessness,” really stands out. He takes his eyes off Mei, and on the morning it’s his turn for housework, he brilliantly forgets about it. He’s so useless you wonder if he even understands the emergency situation of his own spouse being hospitalized.

However, I don’t think we should end our evaluation of the father with just “useless.”

According to the film’s setting, the father is a part-time university lecturer. Moreover, he’s an archaeologist in the humanities. He’s probably a very brilliant man. And he’s 32 years old. He’s in the fight of his life. As a researcher in his 30s, he’s throwing everything he has into his research. Of course, thinking in modern terms, one might be told, “Stop doing that and take care of your children with all your might,” but in fact, that’s also quite precarious for that family. I think a future where the father couldn’t establish his position as a researcher would plunge that family into a much deeper hell. And when I think about that, I can see that father’s “resolve.”

In other words, that father made a decision. The path to being recognized as a researcher. This is not something an “ordinary person” can do. It’s something that father can do because he is brilliant. In a way, I think he might have been an alter ego of Jiro Horikoshi from “The Wind Rises,” or of Director Miyazaki himself. He is the type of person who “cannot not do” something.

From here, I’m going to talk about something very, very unpleasant again.

That father’s “insanity” is the thought that “Well, Satsuki will be fine.” To put it another way, it’s also the thought that “Mei is, well, you know, sort of…” I can’t help but think that the brilliant researcher father could calculate the balance between “research and Satsuki” but gave up on balancing “research and Mei.”

Structurally, “Satsuki, who cannot hug her mother like Mei,” is an alter ego of “Director Miyazaki, who had a ‘less gentle relationship than Satsuki’s’ with his own mother,” and her existence is saved by “having her hair combed.” But on the other hand, “the father who cannot not do his research,” who is an alter ego of “Director Miyazaki who cannot not work,” is leaving Mei, who can hug her mother without a second thought, all alone.

It makes me feel pointlessly gloomy.

Of course, that’s not the case. Both the “potentially not-so-beautiful lie” in the main body of this article and the “father’s insanity” mentioned here are things I’ve thought up on my own, and especially regarding Mei, it’s an “impossible story.” Just because his emotions aren’t overtly visible, it doesn’t mean the father doesn’t love Mei dearly and is thinking, “Oh, well.”

It’s just that when I watch “My Neighbor Totoro” as an adult, I feel the kind of “passions” I wrote about in this article.

Perhaps this is also because I have become one of the “people who can no longer see.”

The images used in this article are from “Studio Ghibli Works Still Images.”