Susuwatari ( ja, ススワタリ, ; "wandering

soot Soot ( ) is a mass of impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons. It is more properly restricted to the product of the gas-phase combustion process but is commonly extended to include the residual pyrolysed ...

"), also called Makkuro kurosuke (; "makkuro" meaning "pitch black", "kuro" meaning "black" and "-suke" being a common ending for boys names), is the name of a fictitious sprite that was devised by

Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widel ...

and

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio headquartered in Koganei, Tokyo."Studio Ghibli Collection - Madman Entertainment". ''Studio Ghibli Collection - Madman Entertainment''. Retrieved 2020-12-14. It is best known for its animated feature films, and h ...

, known from the famous

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

-productions ''

My Neighbor Totoro is a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten. The film—which stars the voice actors Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto, and Hitoshi Takagi—tells the story o ...

'' (1988) and ''

Spirited Away is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Tohokushinsha Film, and Mitsubishi and distrib ...

'' (2001) where, in the former, they are identified as "black soots" in early subtitles, as "soot sprites" or "dust bunnies" in the Streamline Pictures English dub, and as "soot

gremlin A gremlin is a mischievous folkloric creature invented at the beginning of the 20th century to originally explain malfunctions in aircraft and later in other machinery and processes and their operators. Depictions of these creatures vary widel ...

s" in the Walt Disney Studios English dubbed version.

Description

Susuwatari are described and shown as

golf ball A golf ball is a special ball designed to be used in the game of golf. Under the rules of golf, a golf ball has a mass no more than , has a diameter not less than , and performs within specified velocity, distance, and symmetry limits. Like g ...

-sized, pitch-black and fuzzy-haired beings with two large eyes and long, thin limbs. They move by hovering around, but they can extend stick-like limbs from their bodies to do certain tasks, and can lift objects many times their own weight. They make a squeaky murmuring sound when excited, and dissolve into powder (soot) if crushed.

''My Neighbor Totoro''

In ''

'', Nobuhiro, Art of My Neighbor Totoro the house the main characters move into is full of Susuwatari, which are rationalized as ''Makkuro Kurosuke'', an optical illusion caused by moving quickly from light into darkness. Seeing that the family is made of good people, the Susuwatari leave the house to move to another abandoned area.

''Spirited Away''

They later reappeared in ''

'' as workers in Kamaji's boiler room. Miyazaki, Art of Spirited Away, pp. 94-95 Miyazaki, Art of Spirited Away, pp. 108 The protagonist Sen (Chihiro) befriends a number of them by helping them carry

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

. Sen is told that if these Susuwatari are not given a job to do, they turn back into soot. Another character, Lin, feeds the Susuwatari much like farmers feed

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

s, throwing handfuls of the Japanese candy konpeitō onto the ground for them to eat. After Sen is accepted among the staff of the bathhouse, chiefly by Kamaji and Lin, the Susuwatari become almost admiring of her, Miyazaki, Art of Spirited Away, pp. 151 and help her in their small ways.

''Zen - Grogu and Dust Bunnies''

In 2022, Studio Ghibli and Lucasfilm collaborated on a Star Wars short for

Disney+ Disney+ is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned and operated by the Media and Entertainment Distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. The service primarily distributes films and television se ...

where ''

The Mandalorian ''The Mandalorian'' is an American space Western television series created by Jon Favreau for the streaming service Disney+. It is the first live-action series in the ''Star Wars'' franchise, beginning five years after the events of '' Retur ...

'' character

Grogu Grogu, colloquially referred to as Baby Yoda, is a character from the ''Star Wars'' Disney+ original television series ''The Mandalorian''. He is a toddler member of the same species as the ''Star Wars'' characters Yoda and Yaddle, with whom he ...

interacts with a band of dust bunnies that gift him a flower.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * Hayao Miyazaki, Yuji Oniki: ''Spirited Away''. Viz Communications, San Francisco, 2003, * Hayao Miyazaki: ''My neighbour Totoro''. Viz Communications, San Francisco, 2005, * Julien R. Fielding: ''Discovering world religions at twenty-four frames per second''. Scarecrow Press, 2008, , page 317. * Patrick Drazen: ''A Gathering of Spirits: Japan's Ghost Story Tradition: from Folklore and Kabuki to Anime and Manga''. iUniverse, New York 2011, , page 144. * Ayumi Suzuki: ''Animating the chaos: Contemporary Japanese anime, cinema, and postmodernity''. ProQuest, Carbondale 2008, , page 14. * Nakamura, Tamah, Professor. "Spirited Away." ''"Hayao Miyazaki's World" 'Best of' Booklet'', edited by Hiroshi Kudo and Bobby Recinos, PDF ed., Kyushu University, 2013, pp. 17–91. * Hartman, Emma. "Tradition vs. Innovation and the Creatures in Spirited Away." ''Digital Literature Review'', PDF ed., vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 1–13. {{Authority control Hayao Miyazaki Studio Ghibli Fictional yōkai Fictional fairies and sprites Film characters introduced in 1988