Spirituality, Aesthetics, and Aware: Feeling Shinto in Miyazaki Hayao's My Neighbour Totoro

Date

2013-12-03

Authors

Carbullido, Sherri

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Abstract

The thesis will explore the idea of feeling Japanese spirituality of Shinto through a contemporary work of art, the animated film My Neighbour Totoro (1988). The idea of a felt spirituality revolves around Shinto’s notion of kami, divine entities whose existence becomes manifest through one’s feeling and perception to awe-inspiring things of the natural world and the aesthetic notion of aware, an immediate felt emotional response that coincides as the response/reaction when coming into contact with awe-inspiring things. This thesis conceives aware to be the meeting point in which the human and kami world converge, a Shinto concept known as shinjin-g itsu, or the meeting of the human spirit with kami. This thesis will uncover themes of Shinto spirituality through a close reading of the functionality of specific components of the film: music, setting, characters, character interactions, and symbolism. Themes such as nature, community, symbolism and the role of aesthetics within the film will be discussed to showcase the idea of a spiritual encounter. It is a spiritual encounter/meeting that is facilitated through the aesthetics and components of the film which elicits a response of aware from the viewer.

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Keywords

aesthetics, animated film, Shinto, aware, spirituality, kami

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