What are the names of the two sisters in 'My Neighbor Totoro'?

What are the names of the two sisters in My Neighbor Totoro? The answer is Satsuki and Mei. The sisters move with their father, Tatsuo Kusakabe, to a countryside house near the hospital where their mother is recovering from a long-term illness.

Satsuki is the older sister, approximately ten years old, while Mei is about four. Their different ages shape the story: Satsuki is expected to be responsible, but Mei is more impulsive and follows her curiosity into the nearby forest. There, Mei encounters small spirits and eventually meets the large forest spirit she calls Totoro.

The sisters’ relationship drives the film’s emotional center. Satsuki initially struggles to believe Mei’s story, but later sees Totoro herself while waiting for their father’s late bus. When Mei becomes lost while trying to reach the hospital, Satsuki asks Totoro for help, and the Catbus carries her to Mei.

My Neighbor Totoro was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and released in 1988. The film is set in postwar Japan and combines ordinary family worries with animist ideas about forests, spirits, and the living natural world. Totoro later became Studio Ghibli’s mascot.