Studio Ghibli Museum

Studio Ghibli is the Disney of Japan. Except that Studio Ghibli makes better animated films. Yes, a magical place in the suburbs of Tokyo for kids of all ages. Especially big ones with a love of cat buses.

I’d actually been to Studio Ghibli once before a couple of year back. Only we were turned away at the gate. Silly us, we hadn’t reserved tickets online before arriving at the gates. This time I came prepared.

The museum is tucked away in a park in the Tokyo suburb of Mitaka. The entire place seems very organic, with no real “path” for you to follow. Just lots of different ways for you to wonder around on. The entire museum was designed to be an “exhibit” in itself, showing off the Ghibli ideas of imagination.

On the roof of the museum is the robot guard from Laputa. Probably the most iconic part of the museum and a fixture of any set of photos taken at the museum. I want one that size in my yard. Though I guess I’ll have to settle using it as my new desktop wallpaper.

I also really loved the stain glass windows around the Museum. Scenes from many different movies. Very classy. (I’d join the church of Totoro any day.)

While I was there the new exhibit was from the movie Ponyo. Besides lots of cool production sketches and designs, they had a massive pile of nearly 200,000 pages that was the rough draft sketches for the movie. Now thats a lot of paper.

So while Judy and I really enjoyed the Museum we also enjoyed watching all the little kids enjoy it around us. So darn cute!

Now thats one big Totoro. One that I really want to hug!