If you could team a Studio Ghibli character with one from Disney, what would they get up to?

The Catbus is deep in slumber under a shady grove. The spire of a castle can be seen in the distance, cloaked by a layer of mist. The Catbus purrs and rolls over – it’s in a state of bliss. If anyone were to interrupt, the Catbus would be quite the grouch.

So its eyes twitch and its whiskers flinch as it hears what sounds like a deranged lunatic scream in the near distance.

“Catbus! I need help!” wails a man wearing lavish clothes.

The Catbus’ yellow eyes flicker. It bellows out a yawn. A cloud of gas emerges from its rear end. The man can’t tell whether it signifies the engines starting up, or whether the cat just had some bad sardines for dinner last night.

“My name is Prince Charming,” he says. “I met this awesome chick at a dance yesterday, but now she’s vanished! I have this glass slipper, and I think it’s hers. But I’ve got no clue where she is. Apparently, you have some magic powers or something – you can take people to whatever destination they need. So here’s a tenner – can you take me to the gal who owns this slipper?”

The Catbus blinks. “私は英語が話せません” – “I can’t speak English.”

Prince Charming groans. “Darn, I forgot you were made by those Ghibli guys! Hold on a second.” He pulls out his phone, and fires up the translation app. In a robotic voice, his phone says, “この靴を持っている人を見つけます”  – “Help me find the person who owns this slipper.”

The Catbus’ poker face stretches into its iconic smile. Its bum shudders as the engines fire up, and the Prince’s face scrunches up in agony as he realises what the plumes of gas are. The windows of the bus open up to let the Prince in.

“あなたは決して聞かないと思った,” it says. “I thought you’d never ask.”

And with that, the Catbus shoots away into the night sky.

At the age of 1,332, Totoro had trouble walking and moving. Since the Kusakabe sisters grew up, Totoro felt lonely and missed being a part of children’s memories. 

“I miss that energy,” he thought. “Maybe it’s time for a new Kusakabe.” 

The Catbus took him to a place he had never been before – the snow kingdom, where Totoro met Elsa, the future queen. Elsa was alone in her room, sobbing. Guilt filled her head, as she had accidentally injured her sister with magic. 

“I’ll never touch anyone …” she muttered. 

“Why?” A voice startled her. She turned around and her jaw dropped to the floor when she saw Totoro. She started casting spells and thousands of ice spears flew towards  him. But Totoro was too fat and the spears did nothing but tickle him. 

Terrified, Elsa stepped back and shouted, “Stay away from me! I don’t want to hurt you!” 
Totoro’s heart ached to see how aggressive Elsa was. 

“You can’t hurt me, kiddo,” he replied. “But if you build a wall around yourself, people around you will be hurt.”

Elsa looked at Totoro in silence. Totoro walked to Elsa and gave her a big hug. “We have to accept who we are and instead of hiding, we need to learn to have self-control. I trust you, Elsa.” 

From then on, their histories were rewritten. There was no such thing as a scary icy princess or a Totoro with no energy. 

I would team up San from Princess Mononoke and Hiro from Big Hero 6. Hiro has immense intellect, knows martial arts and is a robotics genius. San was raised by wolves from a young age and has loved them ever since. This made San love nature more than humans.

San’s primary concern is protecting the forest and the animals which live there. I envision a world where nature and humans can live in perfect harmony. 

In our present life, humans hate nature so much that we have problems like global warming, overfishing, and deforestation. Going on like this isn’t sustainable. Future generations will not have a beautiful world to call home if we don’t change the way we do things. 

To solve this problem, we need to team up Hiro and San and make the world a better place. Hiro could build robots to do jobs so humans can spend more time with their families and pursue their passions. San, on the other hand, could ride around on her wolf and protect forests from human greed and misadventures. 

One character making the world more efficient and the other keeping the world pristine for us to live healthily and longer! Doesn’t that sound like the kind of “dream team” we need now?

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