Susuwatari

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Susuwatari (ススワタリ lit. meaning "travelling soot") are the "dust bunnies" or "soot sprites" featured in two animated children's movies from Japan's Studio Ghibli: My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. They are small, cute, black as soot and apparently fuzzy, although they dissolve into powder if crushed. They murmur to each other.

In Totoro, the house the main characters move into is full of Susuwatari, which are rationalized as Makkuro Kurosuke (pitch-black blackie), an optical illusion caused by moving quickly from light into darkness. Later, the family drives the Susawatari out of the house with laughter. In Spirited Away, the protagonist Sen (Chihiro) befriends a number of them by helping them carry coal. Sen is told that if these Susuwatari aren't given a job to do, then they turn back into soot. Another character, Lin, feeds the Susuwatari much like farmers feed chickens, throwing handfulls of the Japanese candy Kompeito onto the ground for them to eat.

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