Studio Ghibli is probably the most famous animation studio in Japan. Productions like Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke are famous worldwide. It was founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki and (the recently deceased) Isao Takahata, among others. One of their joint works, even if it’s from the time before Ghibli, should be pretty familiar to almost everyone here: it’s the TV series Heidi.
It’s true: Heidi is a Japanese cartoon, an anime! Unlike in Germany, though, cartoons in Japan aren’t a niche market aimed mainly at kids. Over 430 anime studios there cover a massive thematic spectrum for all age groups with their offerings and make billions in revenue. Studio Ghibli made a name for itself through feature-length, imaginative, and lavishly produced anime for young and old. Many are award-winning, Spirited Away even won a Golden Bear and an Oscar.
In Mitaka, a suburb of Tōkyō, the Ghibli Museum sits nestled in a park. You’d barely be able to spot it for all the green, if it weren’t for the clearly visible five-metre-tall robot from the anime Castle in the Sky standing in the roof garden.
We got our first surprise right at the entrance. The ticket isn’t just some boring strip of paper, but an actual piece of original film from a Ghibli anime.
There’s a lot for both adults and kids to discover in the museum. Of course, everything revolves around the films, their characters, and the work behind them. There’s a cinema that also shows exclusive special productions, right now for instance a short film called Boro the Caterpillar. And naturally, the Catbus from the film My Neighbour Totoro is there too, which kids can crawl through.
We’d love to whet your appetite for the museum even more, but taking photos wasn’t allowed anywhere except in the roof garden.
You can reach the museum from the station in a good 15 minutes on foot, alternatively there are paid shuttle buses available. Tickets normally cost 1000¥. You can’t buy them at the museum, though. One option is to buy a (pretty pricey) voucher from JTB before your trip and redeem it at the museum’s ticket office. Alternatively, according to the museum website, you can get the vouchers online or locally at Lawson. The tickets are really sought after and usually sell out fast.
