Totoro, Catbus, and one other Studio Ghibli cat character are easy-to-justify anime merch purchases.

Just because you’re a big Ghibli fan doesn’t mean you have space in your home, or budget, for the jumbo-sized merch that’s produced for the Hayao Miyazaki-co-founded studio’s anime movies. Sure, that one-meter (3.3-foot) tall Totoro plushie we oohed and aahed over the other day looks cool, but it’s not the sort of thing you can just put on the corner of your desk, and its price is more than most people pay for a month of rent in Japan.

So it’s nice that Studio Ghibli specialty store Donguri Kyowakoku also has sensibly sized, reasonably priced stuff, and when they serve a practical purpose too, they’re even easier to justify buying, all while still looking adorable.

For example, everyone needs a bath mat. I mean, you can’t just go straight from the shower to the regular flooring of your home with your feet still damp, like some kind of savage, can you? So since you need a bath mat, there’s absolutely no reason it shouldn’t be a My Neighbor Totoro bath mat, with repeating renditions of both the Big and Small Totoro, plus a few sprouting leaves and an illustration of the forest spirit and some Soot Sprites on the tag in the lower right corner.

OK, maybe there is, potentially, a reason your bath mat shouldn’t be the Totoro one above, but there are a few other Ghibli options, like this Catbus one that shows the fleet-footed feline dashing through the forest to the bus stop, where Totoro is waiting for a lift.

If you want a more dynamic look, the Catbus also appears on this colorful bath mat bearing its in-Japanese name, Neko Basu.

And finally, another famous feline from the collected works of Ghibli, Kiki’s Delivery Service’s black cat Jiji, has a bath mat of his own, one with pawprints and baked goods.

Each of the solid-color mats is made of 100-percent cotton, measures 45 by 60 centimeters (17.7 by 23.6 inches), and is priced at 2,640 yen (US$17). The multicolor Catbus mat is just a little smaller, at 40 by 60 centimeters, and a polyester/acrylic blend with a price of 2,750 yen, but it comes in a special gift box.

All four mats had been out of stock for some time, but are now available again through the Donguri Kyowakoku online store (Totoro here, Catbus here and here, and Jiji here).

Source: Donguri Kyowakoku
Top image: Donguri Kyowakoku
Insert images: Donguri Kyowakoku (1, 2, 3, 4)
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