龙猫 My Neighbor Totoro (となりのトトロ, Tonari no Totoro?), is a 1988 Japanese anime film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film follows the two young daughters of a professor and their interactions with friendly wood spirits in postwar rural Japan. The movie won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1988. The movie was originally released in the U.S. in VHS format with the title, My Friend Totoro. Streamline Pictures produced an exclusive dub for Japan Airlines' trans-Pacific flights in 1988. Troma Films, under their 50th St. Films banner, distibuted the dub of the film co-produced by Jerry Beck. It was released on VHS and DVD by Fox Video. Troma's and Fox's rights to this version expired in 2004. The film was re-released by Disney on March 7, 2006. It features a new dub cast. This DVD release is the first version of the film in the United States to include both Japanese and English language tracks, as Fox did not have the rights to the Japanese audio track for their version. In 1958, the Kusakabe family reunites when a university professor and his two daughters, Satsuki and Mei, move into an old house in rural Japan to be closer to the hospital where his wife is recovering from an illness. The daughters find that the house is inhabited by tiny animated dust creatures called soot sprites—small house spirits seen when moving from light to dark places. When the girls become comfortable in their new house and laugh with their father, the soot spirits leave. While she is playing outside one day, the younger daughter, Mei, sees two white, rabbit-like ears in the grass. She follows the ears under the house where she discovers two small magical creatures, who lead her through a briar patch, and into the hollow of a large Camphor Laurel tree. She meets and befriends a larger version of the same kind of spirit, which identifies itself by a series of roars she interprets as "Totoro" (in the original Japanese dub, it stems from Mei's mispronunciation of the Japanese pronunciation of the word "troll"). Her father later tells her that this is the "keeper of the forest". One rainy night the girls are waiting for their father's bus and grow worried when he does not arrive on the bus they expect him on. As they wait, Mei eventually falls asleep on Satsuki's back and Totoro appears beside them, allowing Satsuki to see him for the first time. He only has a leaf on his head for protection against the rain, so Satsuki offers him the umbrella she had taken along for her father. Totoro is delighted at both the shelter and the sounds made upon it by falling raindrops. In return he gives her a bundle of nuts and seeds. A bus-shaped giant cat halts at the stop, and Totoro boards it, taking the umbrella. Shortly after, their father’s bus arrives. The girls plant the seeds. A few days later they awaken at midnight to find Totoro and his two miniature colleagues engaged in a ritual dance around the planted nuts and seeds. The girls join in, whereupon the seeds sprout and then grow into an enormous tree. Totoro takes his colleagues and the girls for a ride on a magical flying top. In the morning, the tree is gone, but the seeds have indeed sprouted. Mei, believing her mother's condition has worsened, sets off on foot to the hospital and gets lost. Desperate to find her sister, Satsuki returns to the camphor laurel tree and pleads for Totoro's help. Delighted to be of assistance, he summons the Catbus, which rescues Mei, then whisks her and Satsuki over the countryside to see their mother in the hospital. The girls perch in a tree outside of the hospital to discover that she is doing well. They deliver an ear of corn that Mei believes will speed her mother's recovery, and then return home on the Catbus. When the Catbus departs, it fades away from the girls' sight. The closing credits show Mei and Satsuki's mother returning home and feature scenes of Satsuki and Mei playing with other human children, with Totoro and his friends as unseen observers. 风之谷 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (风の谷のナウシカ, Kaze no Tani no Naushika?) is a 1984 post-apocalyptic Japanese animated film, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, based on his manga of the same name. The film has environmentalist undertones and was presented by the World Wide Fund for Nature when it was released in 1984. While created before Studio Ghibli was founded, the film is considered to be the beginning of the studio, and is often included as part of the Studio's works, including the Studio Ghibli Collection DVDs. Among its numerous awards, it won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1984. The story takes place 1,000 years after the "Seven Days of Fire", an event which destroyed human civilization and most of the Earth's original ecosystem. Scattered human settlements survive, isolated from one another by the Sea of Decay (腐海, fukai?). Literally translated as the Rotting Sea, Sea of Fungus, Sea of Corruption or Toxic jungle in the English version, the Sea of Decay is a jungle of giant plants and fungi swarming with giant insects, which seem to come together only to wage war. Everything in the Sea of Decay, including the air, is lethally toxic. The main protagonist, Nausicaä, is a charismatic young princess of the peaceful Valley of the Wind. Although a skillful fighter, Miyazaki's Nausicaä is humane and peace-loving. She has an unusual gift for communicating with the giant insects (particularly with the Ohmu, gigantic, armored, caterpillar- or isopod-like insects who are the most intelligent creatures in the Sea of Decay. Their eyes turn red with rage and blue when calm). She is also noted for her empathy toward animals, humans, and other beings. An intelligent girl, and inspired by the mentor figure Yupa, a wandering samurai type possessed of great wisdom, Nausicaä frequently explores the Sea of Decay and conducts scientific experiments in an attempt to define the true nature and origins of the toxic world in which she lives. Her explorations are facilitated by her skill at "windriding"; flying with an advanced jet assisted glider craft. Yupa is searching for the mythological man in blue who, according to the legend, will appear surrounded by a sea of gold and reunite the people and nature. One day, an airship crashes onto the cliffs near the Valley of the Wind. Nausicaä tries to rescue a shackled girl of her age from the burning wreck, but the girl dies after revealing that she is Princess Lastelle from the kingdom Pejite and that the cargo of the airship must be destroyed. The airship is from Tolmekia and the cargo turns out to be the embryo of a kyoshinhei (Giant Warrior in the English version), one of the lethal, giant biological weapons used in the ancient war. It is later revealed that the Warrior embryo was unearthed by Pejite, but it was stolen by the more powerful state of Tolmekia (Torumekia in the manga). While transporting the Warrior and Lastelle (as a hostage) back to their realm, the Tolmekians were attacked by insects and later crash-land in the Valley. The next day, the Tolmekians, under the leadership of princess Kushana, invade the Valley to kill the Valley king and to secure and revive the Warrior. Kushana explains that the God Warrior will be used to burn the Sea of Decay, although Obaba, a blind elder Valley woman, warns that attempting so will only anger the Ohmu and lead to more deaths and turn the valley into part of the Sea of Decay. Kushana attempts to return to Tolmekia, with Nausicaä and several others as hostages. Before their departure, Nausicaä reveals to Yupa a hidden garden of jungle plants which are not toxic because they are growing in sand and water from a deep, untainted well. Nausicaä explains that the jungle is only toxic due to the toxic soil that covers the surface of the earth, even in the Valley; she has been trying to find the cause and a possible cure for her people, including her now-dead father. Since she has to depart, however, she has shut down the water flows which keep the plants alive. The airships are attacked by a Pejitan gunship and several of the ships are destroyed. Nausicaä and another hostage make their way to a gunship that the Tolmekians took, but before they can leave, Kushana joins them. They are forced to make an emergency landing in the Sea of Decay. There, Nausicaä communicates with several Ohmus and discovers that the pilot of the Pejitan gunship is still alive. With the help of her glider, Nausicaä rescues the pilot from a swarm of enraged insects. However, the plane crashes and, along with Nausicaä and the Pegitan pilot, ends up in a strange, non-toxic world that is below the Sea of Decay. Nausicaä realizes the plants in the Sea of Decay purify the polluted topsoil, producing clean water and sand which remains hidden in the undergro