(Description below mirrored from Demonoid.)
My Neighbour Totoro (Tonari no Totoro) 1988
Studio Ghibli
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096283/
This is another masterpiece from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, and is reasonably widely available as a torrent. So why bother? Well - many of the Ghibli torrents floating around are Japanese with subtitles, which is what the purists want to watch. There is a school of thought which regards the English dubs as inferior.
Now, I'm not here to argue the point - I prefer the subtitled Japanese versions myself, although the English dubs are extremely well-acted and written. But it's a bit harsh to expect a small child to read subs! And I'm absolutely positive that Miyazaki didn't create this film strictly for those old enough to read subtitles.....
I made this Xvid encode to have both English and Japanese audio-tracks, as well as English subs. So if you prefer, you can watch the original+subs; but if you're watching with children, you can switch to the English dub.
Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco Rosso and My Neighbour Totoro are the 3 Ghibli films that I consider best suited to small (under 5) children. My two-and-a-half year old little boy adores Porco Rosso and Kiki.
For those who haven't seen it, My Neighbour Totoro is a magical film, set in early 20th century rural Japan. A university academic takes his two young daughters, aged around 10 and 4, to stay in a house in a country village, while their mother recovers from a serious illness in a nearby hospital.
The film centres around the adventures of the two girls, and although nothing much actually happens in the 80mins (so very young children may get bored), the girls befriend a forest spirit - Totoro. Many scenes in the movie take the time to be quiet, still and contemplative, and the film contains scenes of astonishing beauty and composition. Miyazaki created it as an elegy - a nostalgic, wistful look into Japan's lost rural past, now buried under the wave of 20th century industrialisation.
It also captures the magic of childhood better than almost any film I can think of. Both the girls are very well characterised, and the animation catches their hopes, fears and dreams at two very different ages. The Japanese voice acting for Mei (the 4-year-old) is worth special mention - the actress Chika Sakamoto was almost 30 when she did the part! But she absolutely nails it - Mei will make parents smile and cry. I usually have a (manly) lump in my throat by the end. *ahem*
There are at least two English dubs kicking around - this one is the 2005 Disney dub, featuring Dakota and Elle Fanning as the two sisters. Elle Fanning was 7 years old when she dubbed the voice of Mei. There's a lot of hat0rade sloshing around the internet for this dub, with many stating firmly that the earlier Troma English dub (with different actresses) was superior. I haven't heard this version, so I can't comment.
But to reiterate - I made this Xvid for children. The English dub on this version is really rather good, and will keep your children entertained, even if the anime fanboys hate it!!
A word of warning, however - the songs on the opening and closing credits in the Japanese version are rather catchy and bouncy. The songs on the English dub are teeth-grindingly awful, in my opinion. You might want to switch audio tracks during the credits.....
DVD-Rip Encoded to Xvid using FairUse Wizard
High quality 2-pass encode resolution = 640x352 bitrate = ~1200kbit/s
Audio = MP3 CBR @ 160kbit/s
Audio track 1 = English dub
Audio track 2 = original Japanese
Subtitles = English (captioned i.e. including sound effects)
Both audio tracks are muxed into the AVI. To switch between them, you need to check your media player's docs. I use Zoom Player, and can easily switch between audio streams. If you can hear both English+Japanese simultaneously, this is sub-optimal. Try a different media player - Media Player Classic, VLC and Zoom Player all have selective stream capability under Windows, as do several others.
On my Divx-capable standalone DVD player, simply pressing the AUDIO button on the handset switches audio tracks.
Subtitles are ripped from DVD using SubRip and are the closed caption English subs in SRT format. These match the English dubbed version perfectly (apart from any mistakes I may have made during ripping!), and include sound effects (for the hearing impaired). However, if you speak Japanese, then these subs may not precisely match what is being spoken onscreen, as they reflect the English dub. Other subs are available on the internet, however.
Note that if you change the name of the AVI file, the name of the SRT subtitle file has to match it precisely.
Again, if you don't see the subs on your media player of choice, you need to check the docs and look into installing DirectVobSub to add these to your viewing experience.
