My Neighbor Totoro Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

My Neighbor Totoro Blu-ray Movie Review

Shout! Factory's recent acquisition of several titles from the Studio Ghibli library promises refurbished editions with bonus features that have "never before been seen on home media in North America" and are "new and/or improved from previous releases in North America." Shout! has reissued My Neighbor Totoro, one of Hayao Miyazaki's most successful films during the eighties, from Disney/Buena Vista Home Entertainment who previously held distribution rights. The re-release doesn't offer anything new in the extras department aside from an attractive leaflet (see the centerfold in Screenshot #3). However, Shout! is including new interviews, featurettes, commentaries, and press conferences in current and future releases of Miyazaki titles.

This Blu-ray & DVD Combo Pack comes with a slipcover and an Elite case for the discs. Cover art on the slip and keep case covers is the same (see #s 1 and 10). For thoughts on the acclaimed animated feature and critique of a/v specs, you can see my colleague Kenneth Brown's review of Disney's 2013 BD/DVD twin pack here.

Slip cover front and back cover of BD case.

My Neighbor Totoro Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

My Neighbor Totoro appears in its native ratio of 1.85:1 on a BD-50. This MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer carries a mean video bitrate of 35000 kbps while the entire disc clocks in at 39.02 Mbps. See and click on Screenshot #s 5-9 for frame enlargements.

Shout! provides eighteen chapter breaks.

My Neighbor Totoro Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

My Neighbor Totoro's soundtrack options consist of the original Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo, an English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (2017 kbps, 24-bit), and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo dubbed in French.

There are three subtitling options: English SDH for the English sound track, English subtitles for the original language version, and French subtitles.

My Neighbor Totoro Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Supplements come with English subs where needed.

• Feature-Length Storyboards (Picture-in-Picture) (1:26:27, 1080p)

• Behind the Microphone: Interviews with the English Dub Cast (5:39, upconverted to 1080p)

• Creating My Neighbor Totoro (2:58, upconverted to 1080p)

• The Locations of My Neighbor Totoro (28:38, upconverted to 1080p)

• Creating the Characters (4:24, upconverted to 1080p)

• The "Totoro" Experience (2:00, upconverted to 1080p)

• Producer's Perspective: Creating Ghibli (1:23, upconverted to 1080p)

• Scoring Miyazaki (7:18, upconverted to 1080p)

• Textless Opening (2:01, 1080p)

• Textless Closing (2:52, 1080p)

• Original Theatrical Trailers (0:54, 1080p)

• NEW 8-page Booklet with Producer's and Director's Statements - In addition to the statements, this slender leaflet contains four color photos.

My Neighbor Totoro Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Currently, Shout! Factory's re-release of My Neighbor Totoro offers a slightly lower price than the earlier Disney/Buena Vista twin pack. This edition comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.