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Totoro and Shinto
I don't believe the section ""Totoro and Shinto"" is necessary. Totoro has nothing to do with anything religious. Even though there appears shrines and a tree with a shimenawa, it doesn't mean that Totoro has shintoist themes because you can see shinto shrine everywhere in Japan. Regarding appearance of shrine as Shintoism is just a misunderstanding by foreigners who have little knowledge of the Japanese way of religion. Obake has nothing to do with shinto either. No Japanese people regard obake as a part of shinto. If you call Totoro religious, almost all Japanese anime and manga will be religious. Do you call Inuyasha religious just because Kagome lives in a shrine? Or do you call Yu Yu Hakusho religious because Yusuke became a ghost and there're many yokais in the show? Or do you say Shrek has Christian themes just because there's a church? Calling something shintoism just because it is traditional is nonsense. Even if Totoro seems to have shintoist themes to the westerners' eyes, it just means Totoro is a movie set in the Japanese countryside and it is nothing worthy of special mention.  

You may believe most Japanese people are shintoist, but it is not necessarily true. They go to shrine on New Year's Day not because they believe in shinto but simply beacuse it is Japanese tradition. The same thing can be said about the appearance of the shrine in Totoro. The appearance of shinto shrine or that of obake cannot be connected to shinto. Believe it or not, it is true that there's no Japanese word for ""shintoist"" although there is the word for ""Buddhist"", bukkyouto. In other words, Japanese people don't regard them something like ""shintoist"". To Japanese, shinto is not something you believe in or you don't blieve in. There's no bible or dogma. Shinto is nothing like Christianity, Islam or Buddhism. It is even doubtful whether it is proper to say that shinto is a religion. 
Totoro is nothing religious. Repeat, the appearance of the shrine doesn't mean Totoro has shintoist themes. I must say that to see Totoro religious is only a biased viewpoint. If there're no dissenting opinions, I will erase the section ""Totoro and Shinto"" on the 24 of April, a week after my first note on the issue.  

True, Totoro is not religious, but there are significant Shinto themes throughout the film. The Totoro are forest/nature spirits, the tree where they live is part of a shrine, and so on. Having Shinto themes does not mean Miyazaki was trying to get across some religious point. Rather, I imagine he was trying to evoke images of a lost past (as it is set in the 1950s) when things were simpler, and trying to get people to remember their roots and not forget their traditions. As you wrote yourself, Shinto is not so much a religion anymore (except to a very few), but more of a set of traditions with some religious elements. Totoro can have Shinto elements without being a religious film. I don't think anyone is arguing the film is religious. You're the only one who's said anything about that. I do find it odd how you reply to yourself above, and appear to be arguing with yourself.···? · Talk to Nihonjoe 

No, I didn't talk to myself. I wanted to say some more. That's all.  

Although I reverted the deletion of this section (see following thread), I have no familiarity with this topic and no opinion whether this section belongs in the article or not.  ☎ 

I agree with Michael Friedrich. All the spiritual creatures appearing in Totoro (totoro/troll, cat-bus, etc.) have as little resemblance to traditional Japanese/shinto spirits as monsters from Nausicaä in contrast to those from Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away that have more expressly Japanese looks and names. 

In either way, unless the author of the section have reliable sources to back up his interpretation of this film in there, it should be removed. A couple of sentence that cite McCarthy's article may stay, but the rest appears to be a product of original research.   

Funnily enough, the only reference to religion in Totoro that I ever heard (well, read) seriously discussed is to