📍Tokorozawa, Saitama, Japan
from 1970“Hayao Miyazaki was born in Tokyo in 1941, during the war, and spent part of his childhood evacuated to Utsunomiya; his family's firm made rudders and parts for fighter planes, which began his lifelong love of flight. For years his mother was bedridden with spinal tuberculosis, much like the mother in My Neighbor Totoro. Since the early 1970s he has lived in Tokorozawa, on the edge of the Sayama Hills north-west of Tokyo — a patchwork of woods, fields and farmhouses that became the countryside of Totoro, released in 1988. When development, illegal dumping and new housing threatened those woods, local people formed the Totoro no Furusato Foundation in 1990 to buy pieces of forest one by one and protect them. Miyazaki joined the cause and gave generously; the first Totoro's Forest was secured in 1991, and the trust now protects dozens of plots. He walks those woods and has been known to pick up litter in his neighbourhood. They remain one of the clearest links between his films and the place that inspired them.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today