My Neighbour Totoro

The film is partially autobiographical. When Hayao Miyazaki and his brothers were children, his mother suffered from spinal tuberculosis for nine years and spent much of her time hospitalized. It is implied, yet never revealed in the film, that Satsuki and Mei's mother also suffers from tuberculosis, as she was hospitalized in a sanatorium (a specialized hospital for tuberculosis patients and usually located in the countryside), which caused the whole family to move to the countryside. He once said the film would have been too painful for him to make if the two protagonists were boys instead of girls.

When Mei is walking around with corn, a goat walks up and bears its large teeth. The goat shows a full set of upper and lower teeth. This is a mistake as goats do not have upper teeth.

Drawings in the closing credits show the mother returning home in a taxi and having a bath with Satsuki and Mei. There is also the appearance of a baby dressed in blue, perhaps a younger sibling (brother?) for the girls.

The humorous line spoken at the start of the film, "Come out! Come out! Or we'll pull your eyeballs out!" had the latter phrase removed in the Streamline Pictures English dub. It was deemed to be "Inpolitically correct" by the company.

Edited into Miyazaki Dreams of Flying (2017)