Why do cartoons in Miyazaki Hayao use totoro as a symbol?

The box office performances of My Neighbor Totoro and Tomb of the Firefly are not as good as expected, which may be due to the missing of the release time, that is to say, these two films were not released during the summer vacation, the movie season. However, their excellent quality has won unanimous appreciation from all walks of life. That year, My Neighbor Totoro arranged almost all Japanese film awards, even including the best cinematography award. The Tomb of Fireflies was praised as "real art". Through these two films, Studio Ghibli became very famous in the Japanese film industry. In addition, My Neighbor Totoro also brought an unexpected harvest to Ghibli-Totoro dolls were very popular. Why is it "unexpected"? Because the Totoro Muppets have been on the market for almost two years, and they didn't create Totoro to promote the box office. As a matter of fact, a puppet maker took a fancy to my neighbor totoro, and thought it was a pity that this "character" didn't make a puppet, so he begged Studio Ghibli to let him make a puppet.

In a word, thanks to the sales results of my neighbor totoro products, Studio Ghibli can slowly make up for the large deficit caused by the production expenses. My neighbor totoro was later regarded by Ghibli as the symbol of the studio. At present, Ghibli is planning to set up a department to sell goods around movie characters. Of course, Ghibli's policy is still to make movies as the first priority, and the income from surrounding commodities is just an additional achievement. Ghibli has never (and will never) change any part of the film in order to consider the value of the surrounding goods.