Tokyo Ghibli Museum
Many are the museums and art galleries that during the world crisis of the Coronavirus have chosen to show their heritage and installations online, but it is perhaps the virtual 'opening' of the Ghibli Museum, Tokyo Mitaka –Of which there are hardly any videos and images– the one that has made us most excited.
It was its creator, master animator Hayao Miyazaki, winner of an Oscar for best animated film for Spirited Away, who decided to ban taking photos, because in this "open portal to the world of fantasy", as he defines it, it would be a shame to interrupt the experience with awkward and unnecessary posing.
Room 'Where a film is born', in the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka of Tokyo.
You go to the Ghibli Museum to relax and enrich yourself, not to show off or show off, since its objective is that children (who are treated as adults) and the young at heart (read, lovers of Japanese anime) discover, feel, enjoy and reflect, as explained in their manifesto.
THE VIRTUAL TOUR
Five, just five brief videos of their spaces (between 30 seconds and one minute each), are the ones that the animation studio Ghibli –known as the Disney of Japan– He has shared on his YouTube channel.
Dosed visual pills that have done nothing but arouse even more our curiosity for this atypical museum (some say hermetic; others, friky) in which the actual purchase of tickets (which are usually sold out instantly) is, to say the least, singular: they must be reserved on the official website three months in advance for a specific date and time and, once at the box office on that day, the reservation coupon will be exchanged –as a ticket– for a small piece of real 35 millimeter film that was used in theaters.
The first video shows us the fresco on the ceiling of the Space of Wonders, illustrated with vines, fruits, flowers and the characters of My Neighbor Totoro (voted the best animated film in history by Time Out magazine), Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (listed as Miyazaki's first feature film for Studio Ghibli) and Nicky, the Witch's Apprentice (the first great success of the Japanese director in United States).
It should be remembered that it was Miyazaki himself, awarded the honorary Oscar in 2014, who baptized the company with the Arabic term Ghibli, which means sirocco, in reference to the new airs that his style of films would bring to the animation industry.
the second video focuses on showing the room Where a movie is born, in which the only empty spaces are the ones on the blank page on the desk of an animator who has surrounded himself with his favorite objects: sketches, illustrations, models, books, toys... An excessive and spontaneous environment that tries to explain the way the spark of creativity is ignited needed to create an animated movie.
The rest of the graphic files shared by the Ghibli Museum walks through the facilities stopping at delicate and artisanal decorative and structural details, such as the stained glass windows, the marquetry, the lamps on the mysterious stairs or even the tiles and the children's wallpaper in the bathroom.
We do not know how much longer this moving place located on Kichijoji Avenue will remain closed to the public (in whose Teatro Saturno original short films from the Ghibli studio are usually screened), but – while the de-escalation continues in Japan – we will be attentive to your youtube channel in case you dare to record images of the gigantic and cuddly catbus from My Neighbor Totoro who presides over your game room or the castle in the sky robot which, from the roof garden terrace, escorts both the Ghibli Museum and the natural environment of Inokashira Park.
Address: Inokashira Park: 1 Chome-1-83 Shimorenjaku, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0013, Japan View Map
Schedule: 10:00 - 18:00 (closed on Tuesdays, except September 22, November 3 and December 22)
Half price: Adult: JPY 1,000 / From 13 to 18 years old: JPY 700 / From 7 to 12 years old: JPY 400 / From 4 to 6 years old: JPY 100 / Under 3 years old: Free