The Ghibli Art Museum

One of the highlights of my recent trip to Tokyo was being able to see the legendary Studio Ghibli Art Museum in Mitaka, a Western suburb about 15 miles outside of the city. Considering myself a fan of the studio’s more popular films (like My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke) and having watched some of Ghibli’s more obscure titles (like 耳をすませば) while taking animation-based conversation courses in college, I was quite curious to see what the creative minds at Ghibli had built in Mitaka. I’m pleased to report that the museum is every bit as whimsical, fantastic and enjoyable as the films that inspired it.

Like many things here in Japan, visiting the Ghibli Museum is no simple affair. Unlike most museums, you cannot simply purchase tickets as you enter. Rather, a ticket must be purchased in advance for a specific day and time. When I tried to buy tickets a few days before our trip at my local Lawson (using the handy Loppi machine, of course), I saw that they were essentially sold out for the next two months. The Ghibli Museum appears to be a very popular attraction for both Japanese and foreign tourists and I had been warned by numerous people that tickets would not be easy to come by. I had heard though, that a certain number of tickets for each day were reserved for foreign visitors and that they were available at the JTB chain of travel offices. So I went down to the JTB in Hachinohe to attempt to reserve two tickets. At first the travel agent thought that I simply wanted to buy train tickets to get to the museum but when I clarified that I needed an actual museum ticket I was told that I would have to buy it at Lawson. As it turns out, tickets for foreign visitors are available at most JTB locations worldwide except for those inside Japan. How very convenient.

Frustrated but not yet discouraged, I pressed on. A little research revealed that there was actually one JTB in the country that would sell me a ticket: the Mitaka office. Since they are only allotted a limited amount of tickets per day we would have to get there before they sold out but it seemed like it was still worth a shot. We showed up only about an hour before the 1:30 entry time and upon walking into the JTB office we were immediately asked “Ghibli tickets?” After presenting my passport and ¥1000, I was given a voucher which I was able to exchange at the museum for a ticket.

Mitaka is only about a half hour away from Shinjuku on the train but it really has a completely different feel from the concrete jungle that is Tokyo proper. Cobblestones line the narrow streets, trees dot the landscape and everything seems to move just a little bit slower. Deep in the heart of Mitaka lies Inokashira Park, one of the largest parks in the Tokyo area. At the park’s southern tip you will find 三鷹の森ジブリ美術館, the “Ghibli Art Museum of Mitaka Forest”.

Here we see the front gates of the museum.
Just through the gate is a ticket booth manned by none other than Totoro! Of course, this isn’t an actual ticket booth. Rather it’s Ghibli’s subtle way of reminding you of all the fucking hoops you had to jump through to come here in the first place.
Here we see the entrance to the museum itself where guests enter the magical world of Ghibli.
As you can see, it’s a pretty wacky building, built to accommodate the museum’s various exhibits and attractions.
Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to take any photographs inside the museum, so you’ll have to rely on my descriptive abilities in addition to a few promotional photographs from the Ghibli website. I did manage to snap this one photo of the museum’s main hall before I was reprimanded by a security guard. As you can see, the center of the building houses a maze of stairways and catwalks that invite the enterprising explorer to blaze his or her own trail through the museum. It is said that there is no “correct” route to follow although it is admittedly not a very large building.


The first floor of the museum seems to be dedicated to the medium of cell animation. To this end there are various exhibits scattered throughout the ground floor that demonstrate the principals of traditional animation in a number of imaginative ways. The one that Ryan and I most enjoyed was a giant disk in a glass case that was covered with tiny models of Ghibli characters in various stages of performing actions (pictured at right). The disc spun at a constant speed and a strobe light flashed on and off between “frames”. The end result was that if you fixed your eye on a single spot on the disk, you would see a three dimensional cartoon come to life. Kiki and a chibi Totoro swing a jump rope, the catbus scurries through the sky and Totoro jumps up and down excitedly. This might not sound that great on paper but it’s truly delightful to watch in person.

In addition to these sorts of exhibits, the first floor also houses the so-called Saturn Theater where exclusive Ghibli short films are screened. Each visitor to the museum is allowed to see one film screening and there are generally three different films showing on a given day. Unfortunately, we totally forgot about this and left the museum without seeing any of the shorts.

The second floor is home to the museum’s permanent and special exhibitions. The special exhibition space features a rotating exhibit centering on either one of Ghibli’s films or the films of another animation studio (for example, last year’s Pixar exhibition). I didn’t recognize the film that was featured this time around (and I forgot to jot down the name) but it seemed like it was an older anime about a girl and her dog whose family lived in a little house on top of a hill. Regardless, the exhibit was beautifully produced and featured model recreations of scenes from the film as well as a life-size recreation of the girl’s house.

The permanent exhibition space houses a recreation of Hayao Miyazaki’s workshop where hand-drawn concept drawings and sketches as well as real production cells cover the walls. Unlike in most museums, these were not housed behind glass but were merely tacked-up on the wall so that you could even touch them if you wanted.

On the third floor are the museum gift shop and book shop as well as just about the coolest thing in the entire museum: an almost life-sized catbus! I would have loved to have sat inside it but it was swarming with hyperactive children at the time of my visit. There’s also a balcony that leads to a metal spiral staircase that goes up to the roof of the building. There’s another similar staircase inside the building that goes all the way from the ground floor to the roof.

On the roof you’ll find a shockingly attractive and tall foreigner. Here we see the robot from Laputa posing next to him for a photo.
And that’s about that. I would highly recommend the museum to anyone who visits Tokyo, especially those of you who are fans of Ghibli’s movies. The entire museum has been designed with such imagination and attention to detail that it’s a pleasure to simply walk around and let yourself be sucked into the fantasy.