Food Culture in Japanese Animation - The Image of Family in “My Neighbor Totoro”
The main character of “My Neighbor Totoro” is Satsuki; her family includes a mother who is absent due to being hospitalized and her father, who is a writer concentrated on his work. For that reason, the role of supporting the daily life of the family is posed upon Satsuki. Satsuki who is 10 years old is still a child. However, she is forced to bear the adult role for everyday life and takes care of her younger sister and her father. Her sister, Mei, also acts cheerful and bright even without her mother around. “My Neighbor Totoro” is the story of these two sisters and their meeting of the supernatural creature named Totoro.
Hayao Miyazaki said “My Neighbor Totoro” depicts “two completely different stories” - the fantastic scenes where Totoro is depicted and the ordinary, everyday scenes. Totoro appears for only one third of the …show more content…
The first scene, the father makes dinner on the night they moved in to their new home and in the second scene, Satsuki makes breakfast the day after visiting their mother in the hospital. These two cooking scenes have both similarities and differences. Miyazaki attaches heavy importance to cooking scenes no matter what the work because in these scenes, we can see the relationship between the people cooking and the people eating. Please discuss in groups the similarities and the differences of the two scenes in “My Neighbor Totoro”.
First, the points that are similar - in the first scene, there is steam rising from a pot next to the father cutting vegetables with a kitchen knife next to Satsuki. In the second scene, rather than making Western cuisine or fancy dishes, she is making miso soup, Japanese home style cooking, in order to feed the family. A member of the family making everyday Japanese cuisine for the other family members. That - is expressed in the steam of the miso
The main character of “My Neighbor Totoro” is Satsuki; her family includes a mother who is absent due to being hospitalized and her father, who is a writer concentrated on his work. For that reason, the role of supporting the daily life of the family is posed upon Satsuki. Satsuki who is 10 years old is still a child. However, she is forced to bear the adult role for everyday life and takes care of her younger sister and her father. Her sister, Mei, also acts cheerful and bright even without her mother around. “My Neighbor Totoro” is the story of these two sisters and their meeting of the supernatural creature named Totoro.
Hayao Miyazaki said “My Neighbor Totoro” depicts “two completely different stories” - the fantastic scenes where Totoro is depicted and the ordinary, everyday scenes. Totoro appears for only one third of the …show more content…
The first scene, the father makes dinner on the night they moved in to their new home and in the second scene, Satsuki makes breakfast the day after visiting their mother in the hospital. These two cooking scenes have both similarities and differences. Miyazaki attaches heavy importance to cooking scenes no matter what the work because in these scenes, we can see the relationship between the people cooking and the people eating. Please discuss in groups the similarities and the differences of the two scenes in “My Neighbor Totoro”.
First, the points that are similar - in the first scene, there is steam rising from a pot next to the father cutting vegetables with a kitchen knife next to Satsuki. In the second scene, rather than making Western cuisine or fancy dishes, she is making miso soup, Japanese home style cooking, in order to feed the family. A member of the family making everyday Japanese cuisine for the other family members. That - is expressed in the steam of the miso