It's a Japanese movie, takes place in Japan, the characters in the film are Japanese but that do they decide? To give them American accents. If you're going to have mediocre English overdub, the accents should at least be done in the native country.
Take Schindler's List for instance. It was an English speaking film but the Germans had German accents.
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I live in Mexico, and most of the films and TV shows I see are American productions. When I watch them dubbed in Spanish, I just don't expect them to have American accents (nobody does).
You mention Schindler's List as an example. The fact that they are German is an important part of the story, and that's why they have German accents. But with Totoro, the fact that they are Japanese is totally irrelevant to the story (we could have a forest spirit in America and the story would make as much sense)
Hang on, do you mean to say that you want the characters to be speaking in English, but with Japanese accents?
Surely, when we watch an American English dub - or French or Spanish or Cantonese or whatever- we are pretending that the language we hear is the native language of our characters. So surely they shouldn't be speaking it imperfectly?
Personally I would never, ever watch anime with American over-dub, but I know plenty of people like it.
I hate dubs as a rule but I don't see the issue with the accents. As long as the accent is consistent and it's not like one guy has a New Jersey accent and another has a Texas accent and yet another has a Scottish accent. Then it would be a bit ridiculous. But once you dub it anyway I don't think it matters what accent you use. If anything, using fake Japanese accents would make the dub even worse. And I think dubbing in and of itself does enough damage anyway.
Subs all the way. Screw dubs.
The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of history.
-Mao Zedong