Western screenwriting tradition says that conflict is the heart of all storytelling, but after a hard day you may not want to watch something stressful. Some people turn to “slow TV” – meditative footage of scenic train rides or people knitting that can go for 10-plus hours – but my preference is for what I’ll call “slow anime”, known in Japan as iyashikei or “healing-type” anime: stories that are designed to be as comfy and mellow as can be.
Perhaps the best-known iyashikei anime outside Japan is Studio Ghibli’s 1988 film My Neighbour Totoro, a story in which nothing much happens until the last 20 minutes – despite the presence of soot spirits, a set of tanuki raccoons and a flying cat that is also a bus. Totoro contains many elements common to slow anime: an optimistic sense of wonder at the natural world, often explored through the prism of youth; some lush background art; and wonderfully tranquil music. Unlike other Ghibli films like Spirited Away or even the similarly chill (though more narratively focused) Kiki’s Delivery Service, Totoro revels in small joys: sharing time with family, cleaning a dusty old house together, or enjoying the fresh air while rambling through forests and fields. It all adds up to evoke the sort of feeling you might experience while doing those things yourself.
