A new piece of mash-up fan art transports the adorable characters of Studio Ghibli's My Neighbor Totoro to the Otherworld of Silent Hill.
The fan art, which was shared on Reddit by artist Zettabeast, gives a dark twist to the iconic cover of My Neighbor Totoro. Titled "My Nightmare Totoro," the image depicts a crooked sign, Silent Hill 3's Heather and a monstrous version of the titular woodland spirit, who now features glowing red eyes, sharp fangs, long claws, shredded ears and Pyramid Head's triangular helmet. Some viewers posited that this is what Studio Ghibli films would look like if they were created by horror manga artist Go Nagai (Devilman, Violence Jack) instead of Hayao Miyazaki.
This isn't the first piece of mash-up fan art created by Zettabeast that combines something adorable with something horrific. The artist also posted an image that reimagines Donald, Goofy and Sora from Square Enix and Disney's Kingdom Hearts in the aesthetic of FromSoftware's Bloodborne. There is a wealth of pieces that invoke the cosmic horror of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos either directly or indirectly.
My Neighbor Totoro debuted in 1988 and tells the story of two young sisters and their adventures with friendly woodland spirits in post-war rural Japan. Directed and written by Miyazaki, it stars Chika Sakamoto (One Piece), Noriko Hidaka (Komi Can't Communicate) and the late Hitoshi Takagi (Pikachu's Rescue Adventure). Upon its release, the movie quickly became a fan-favorite and won multiple prestigious awards, including the Grand Prix Prize at the Animage Anime Awards and Best Film at the Mainichi Film Awards.
The first Silent Hill game was released in 1999, selling over two million copies. The narrative follows Harry Mason as he searches for his missing daughter in the eponymous town and stumbles upon a cult that wishes to revive a monstrous deity. The game has inspired a several sequels and spinoffs, cementing Silent Hill as one of the horror genre's most iconic video game franchises. It also spawned two film adaptations: Christopher Gans' Silent Hill and M. J. Basset's Silent Hill: Revelation.
Not all recent examples of Studio Ghibli fan art have a horrific twist. Earlier this year, one fan created a Rube-Goldberg Machine that plays Spirited Away's most iconic melody and features cute imagery from the film like the Susuwatari (soot spirits), and two other fans baked a sugar cookie version of Castle in the Sky's gentle Laputian robot.
My Neighbor Totoro is available to stream on HBO Max.
Source: Reddit
