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I ordered the DVD “Totoro” from Amazon and received it in the mail very quickly (about 5 days to Tokyo with standard shipping). This is not to be a review of the film but a review of the DVD. Hayao Miyazaki directed this film and is one of my favorite directors. His other films include “Spirited Away” and “Princess Mononoke”, he creates magic on the screen for all ages (did I just say that?). This DVD is being reviewed because of the poor job they did in packaging the film.

Watching it you might think it was produced some American TV studio. It was done well enough for young children which I suppose was the goal, do it good enough for kids. Good enough should never be good enough for any age, in my honest opinion. Japanese anime is not generally produced for kids, although some are produced for kids and Miyazaki-san generally delivers to that audience but there still is something for adults in his movies. This DVD strips out everything for adults with the poor translation. Another thing this DVD did which made me angry was that they removed Japanese language content. Yes most Western kids (and adults) lack the Japanese language skills to take advantage of a Japanese soundtrack but dammit not all of them and it would have cost $ 0 to leave the original soundtrack in. I have removed this DVD from my Amazon sidebar and replaced it with the “Princess Mononoke” DVD which is very well done. I had ordered Totoro because I’m lazy and Amazon is so easy to go online and click a few mouse buttons to have it delivered. I’ve learned my lesson and I’ll take a trip downtown and buy the Japanese version.

Guess I pack this and send it back to the states for my young niece, I don’t want it.

Studio: Twentieth Century Fox Home Video

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Movie Review