Small Totoro Honnori Lamp Review

Date: 2021 June 01 16:02

Posted by Joe

At Otaku News HQ, we don't often buy that much merchandise any more, mainly due to space limitations. With so many great items out there, it's easy to get carried away and we've become very selective.

Just by luck when browsing Twitter something caught our eye. It was this brilliant little lamp.

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It is sold by Japanese retailer Donguri Sora (Acorn Republic), who specialise in selling official Studio Ghibli merchandise domestically in Japan. We've bought from them before and have had to cautious doing as it's easy to get carried away buying wonderful Ghibli stuff.

Unfortunately they don't ship outside of Japan. So you've got to either have a friend in Japan or rely on a third party shipping company. The lamp does contain a fixed lithium-ion battery which some place will refuse to ship. However Japan post will ship it, as the battery is fixed in place in the unit and not removable. So as long as the person shipping it understands that, it will be fine to post.

The lamp retails for 11,000 JPY (about $100 USD / £70 GBP / €82 Euro at the time of writing).



The lamp arrived well packed from Japan. It's presented in this snazzy orange box unsurprisingly showing you the contents. On opening it up you can see the USB cable and plastic leaf. Taking this out and getting to the card layer beneath you get the instructions and the little white Totoro lamp itself. The instructions are in Japanese, English and Chinese.







It takes 6 hours to do a full charge and claims up to 30 hours of light (although it's not clear if this will vary due to brightness level). It charges via a conventional USB-C port, which is at the back near the tail.





The lamp is intended for indoor use only and is not water proof so don't use to go exploring in ancient woodland near your home.





You pretty much get what you see. The base / bottom is made from a strong ABS plastic, while the actual body of the little white Totoro is made from a soft squidgy silicon so it can wobble when you hold it. Size wise it's about 12.5cm wide, 20cm high and 12.5cm deep.



There's an on/off switch at the bottom and a button to change the brightness levels.







On the front of the little fellow there's a hole to stick the artificial leaf. The leaf is bendable so you can adjust it to some degree.







We haven't had this lamp long but we love it. It appears to be an accurate perfectly proportioned rendition of the small Totoro. I don't know how accurate, as I'm an adult and can no longer see woodland spirits. It's both functional and ornamental. Importantly as well it's an official bit of merchandise and not a knock off you so commonly find on the internet. We only wish was easier to obtain internationally. You can some official Studio Ghibli from various retailers but the supply and range is often very limited, which is suprisingly considering how popular Ghibli titles are. As a result a lot of merchandise appears to be bootlegs and this is always troublesome. So if you want this lamp, find a good third party shipping company or reach out to a friend in Japan for it.