My Neighbour Totoro Research

I decided to rewatch all the Studio Ghibli movies recently as they’ve just been put on Netflix. I was rewatching My Neighbour Totoro and realised that a lot of the scenery would be good reference for this project. I made a few sketches whilst watching the movie, but I realise that because it’s anime a lot of the nature depicted isn’t very helpful. I did get an idea for my project though. Totoro is a spirit of the forest, and one role spirits play in Japanese lore is to protect. There is also a line in the movie ‘trees and people used to be friends’. This gave me an idea to create a character, or spirit, and feature it in my art. This would help translate one of the meanings I want to convey in my project, which is how Japanese feel about and react to their environment. Also, as I wrote in my proposal, I usually like to have a character in my work, so this would be a way of doing that. It can help create and emotion more than just drawing nature would. Also I could create more of a story line, if that’s what I end up wanting to do.