what is a soot sprite

A Soot Sprite, also known as Susuwatari, is a fictitious sprite that was created by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. They are spirits that appear in the famous anime productions My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. Soot Sprites are little black soots that wander around empty houses and leave dirt and dust in their wake). They are also known as "Travelling Soot" or "All Blacky" in Japanese. In the early subtitles of My Neighbor Totoro, they were identified as "black soots". In the Streamline Pictures English dub, they were called "soot sprites" or "dust bunnies". In the Walt Disney Studios English dub, they were referred to as "soot gremlins". Soot Sprites have become a popular icon in Studio Ghiblis merchandise, and there are even Soot Sprite cookie pops available.