Spirited Away at the Ghibli Museum, Tokyo

There have been a few things which have been difficult to secure tickets for on this trip. A bus which left Ushuia at 3am and could only be booked in cash at a desk with unfathomable opening hours, the fantastic Blue Note Jazz club in New York and flights with Air Vanuatu. But the prize goes the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka city, a wonderful, whimsical celebration of the animation film studio known for its hand drawn animations and meticulous attention to detail by Hayao Miyazaki who creates both absurd and realistic imaginary worlds.

We met Studio Ghibli’s most famous neighbour, the lovable Totoro, waiting at the reception desk. You can take pictures outside the museum, but not inside, keeping the delights secret until you arrive. It also means everyone spends their time actually looking at things, not capturing an image to share later.

Inside the maze like building, there are spiral staircases, bridges between the floors and stained glass windows full of imagery from the Ghibli worlds, splashing a kaleidoscope of colours over the walls and floors. There are brightly painted frescos and coloured marbles set into the intricate ironwork. It’s the same attention to detail seen in the studio’s animations which make the building so engaging and magical. There are doors which go nowhere, two permanent exhibitions and one temporary, a reading room, a kids play area, a roof garden, a cinema, a cafe, and obviously a well stocked gift shop.

On arrival, we each received a ticket which allowed for one entry to the Saturn Cinema in the basement of the museum.

The cinema shows exclusive Studio Ghibli short films every twenty minutes. The movie we watched was Mei and the Baby Cat Bus, a mini sequel to my neighbour Totoro, following Mei, a whole bunch of ghosts and Totoro into a night time adventure aboard real live cat public transport. As with all the displays in the museum, the movie was only in Japanese with no subtitles, but didn’t require any translation to enjoy. The cinema itself is a work of art, with beautiful murals of flowers and a blue sky above. Again, that attention to detail thing. Each ticket for the cinema is different, and contains a few frames from the actual 35mm film of a Ghibli movie which was projected in theatres. Ours included a couple of scenes from Ponyo.

The permanent exhibit “The Beginning of Movement” shows the early ideas of animation, with zoetropes, crank handle animations and layered shadowboxes which offer peeks into different worlds. The standout installation is a 3d zoetrope which uses strobe lights to create the illusion of three dimensional animation, wonderful and magical, and the kids loved working out how each part of the installation worked, playing it over and over again. Even if you’ve never seen a Ghibli movie, you can appreciate the creativity and magic here.

The second of the two permanent exhibitions is entitled “Where a Film is Born”. This display showcases sketches and illustrations showing the thought processes behind the piecing together of a movie, recreating the studio of an animator. The creative process behind several different movies is represented here, with each movie being shown in a different artist’s studio. Aside from the stunning and meticulous craft on display here, it was interesting how each of the studios varied in content and atmosphere, partly based on the individuality of the artists and partly due to the influence of the movie itself.

The temporary exhibition introduced us to a TV show we hadn’t previously heard of, Future Boy Conan from 1978, bringing material out of the archives to showcase the animation.

No day out would be complete without a kids play area, and on the top floor of the museum is a fluffy recreation of the Cat Bus from My Neighbour Totoro, along with hundreds of little fluffy Susuwatari or Soot Sprites which was very popular with our own little Soot Sprites who visited multiple times during our visit to throw themselves around and bounce about on the furry friend.

Outside, up a spiral staircase is a rooftop garden looked over by a giant metal Robot Soldier from the movie Castle in the Sky. Up here, there’s a train track which goes nowhere along with water features and plants.

How we did it

Securing timed entry tickets to the Ghibli Museum, especially for foreigners, is notoriously difficult. Not only are there few available but the process would be right at home in one of Ghibli’s own complex fantasy worlds. Tickets are released online in monthly batches at 0900 (Japan time) on the 10th of the preceding month on the Lawson website. So, in the dead of night at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge in Florida Jim found himself 3393rd in the online queue for Ghibli Museum tickets. Initially dispirited but glad to see the queue moving at a steady pace, three hours later our places were secure. We had to arrive promptly at our allotted time, and present the tickets printed out on actual paper to gain entry. The tickets are not expensive at 1000 yen (£5.48) for adults and 400 yen for the kids (£2.19), just devilishly difficult to attain. The museum is open from 10am – 6pm, and once inside you can stay as long as you wish.

The museum is set in Inokashira park in the Mitaka neighborhood of Tokyo. This is a fair way out to the western suburbs but the Chuo Line (rapid) train got us to the Kichijoji station from Tokyo central station in half an hour with a 15 minute walk along the edge of the park. It was entertaining watching locals play tennis and baseball in the park, while the nearby high street of Kichijoji had plenty of food and refreshment options.