My Neighbor Totoro (1988, Jp.) (aka Tonari no Totoro)

In director Hayao Miyazaki's fanciful and imaginative anime tale about friendship between two young daughters in late 1950s Japan - the director's breakthrough film:

• the two main characters - young protagonist sisters: 10-year-old Satsuki and 4-year-old Mei, daughters of Anthropology Professor Kusakabe in Tokyo, living in the rural countryside while their mother was recuperating in a hospital of an illness
• in the mystical forest around the farmhouse, Mei discovered a menagerie of small, friendly house 'sprites' (or spirits), known as Totoros (gods of the forest) (pronounced toe-toe-ro); the three spirits were: (1) a translucent, small white creature (a Chibi Totoro), and (2) a medium-sized blue creature (a Chuu Totoro); and the third gray creature (an Oh Totoro), the biggest and eldest, the King or Guardian of the Forest, who was found sleeping inside a large camphor tree
• one rainy night, as the two sisters (Mei was clinging onto Satsuki's back) waited at a bus stop, Oh Totoro revealed himself with only a leaf on his head for protection against the rain; Oh Totoro handed the girls a package (filled with acorns) before he left
• after planting the acorns in a garden, the girls watched one night as the seedlings sprouted and a new forest of acorn trees quickly grew up
• the first appearance of the "cat bus" - a 12 legged, feline vehicle, one of the magical and whimsical creatures in the forest; it had a wide mouth and face, was striped, and slightly resembled the "Cheshire Cat" in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

The "Cat Bus"

• the later reunion of the two sisters, who were transported in the bus to the hospital to see their ill mother Yasuko