My Neighbor Totoro: Mino Ceramic Bowl with Cherry Blossom Design

Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 classic My Neighbor Totoro has a calm all of its own: forest spirits, cherry blossoms, the smell of rain. You look for great drama in vain – the film tells of two sisters who move to the countryside and meet creatures nobody but them can see. That is exactly why so many people watch it again and again.

The Mino ceramic bowl with cherry blossom design carries that mood into your everyday life. It shows the smiling gray Totoro and a small soot sprite – those tiny black dust creatures that live in abandoned rooms and scatter at the slightest disturbance – surrounded by delicate cherry blossoms. It is officially licensed too, and comes straight from Japan.

The bowl is made from traditional Japanese Mino ceramics, a craft at home in the prefecture of Gifu for centuries. Mino ware was never showpiece tableware but ceramic for the daily table, and that is how it feels: solid and unfussy. Much of Japan’s everyday dishware still comes from this area. Every piece is a small one-off – slight unevenness in shape and glaze is no flaw, it is the mark of real handwork.

At around 13 cm in diameter it sits well in the hand: big enough for your breakfast, a serving of ramen or muesli, and still no bulky soup pot. Matcha looks good in it too. For the microwave it is not suitable. As a gift for Ghibli fans whose figure shelf is long since full, it has one advantage: unlike a collector’s figure it does not just stand around, it lands back on the table every morning.

Material: Ceramic (Mino ware)
Diameter: approx. 13 cm
Motif: Totoro and a soot sprite among cherry blossoms
Special feature: Handmade, every piece a one-off
Microwave: Not suitable
Origin: Japan
License: Officially licensed