Keeps and leaves you with a big SMILE!

Rating: 10/10 (21 July 2002)

Last night, I went to a rave party. Because of that, I can't sleep tonight, even as tomorrow is my birthday. So I decided to watch some anime. Tonari no Totoro had been given a very nice average score here at imdb, so I settled for it. It seems fortune itself has decided to give me this birthday present that is the pure joy of watching this movie.
I mentioned in a review of another anime (Kiki's Delivery Service), that it reminded me of Astrid Lindgren's "Pippi Longstockings" which I was fed with as a swedish child. This movie is just about as fine! It gives me an insight of what it must've been like to be a child growing up at the countryside in the japanese 50s (which I guess is the setting for this movie), and at the same time it reminds me of what it was like for myself to grow up back when I lived in a house in the suburbs of Stockholm with a fairly large garden.
I started smiling after watching this movie for about ten minutes, then I kept on smiling unto the worrying part (you will know what I mean if you have seen/will see the movie). How about that, by the way? An anime for kids that gets a 22-year old like me worried when the plot becomes saddening? Anyway, when the credits started rolling by with a beautiful, playful song in the background, I was smiling once again. This movie deserves no other grade than a 10, and that's what I'm about to give it :)

Johan