Playing tourist at Studio Ghibli Museum
Many people are surprised to know that Mrs. Kangaroo is a huge fan of Hayao Miyazaki’s anime movies. She watches them on CBS in Sydney once a week and has even videotaped all her favourites, including Porco Rosso, and Kiki’s Delivery Van. Her granddaughters are particularly enamoured by Miyazaki’s Totoro.
On her way to Italy, she stopped by Tokyo and we took a day trip to Nikko. But before she left, she made sure she bought three tickets to the Studio Ghibli Museum a month in advance for her short stay here when she flew back from Italy to Sydney.
Yup, I got to meet the dude in person — he was sitting in a huge glass exhibit at the entrance to the Studio Ghibli Museum. There was a constant crowd of people taking photos in front of the popular character, so we had be quick with our timing to squeeze in between fans.
For any Miyazaki fan, this would seem like a dream come true to stroll through an entire building full of his work. I would hesitate to call it a fantastic experience as it was insanely crowded and there were babies crying and screaming wherever we went.
We also couldn’t take photos within the museum so I have very limited pictures to show you.
Do look out for a special sneak screening of what must be Miyazaki’s early attempts at anime — it was a delightful story about kids and a whale. We kicked of our session with this but everything went downhill after that…
The museum had a mockup of Miyazaki’s imagined study room where we could flip through his original sketches of all his anime, which were nice to see, but again, the crowd was overwhelming and all we wanted to do was rush through every room.
The collectibles were seriously cute and awesome but the gift shop must be one of the worst places to be in. The queues were horrendously long and it was impossible to linger over the unique toys and whatnots as we were literally rubbing shoulders with the next person.
Mrs. Kangaroo was keen to head over to the Cat Bus room but it turned out to be a playground for toddlers so the entire space was crammed with parents and screaming kids waiting to get into the huge plush Cat Bus. We got the hell out of there, obviously.
So we put our feet up and had an ice cream on the veranda.
My verdict? It was a little disappointing, but still worth the hike up to Mitaka, if you are a big fan. Try to buy the 10am tickets because that would mean less people around when you are browsing. We could only get the 4pm slot but assumed there was some way the staff would kick you out after your session. Wrong on that one as you can stay for however long you want so the crowd just becomes bigger and bigger as the day wears on. Oh and book waaay before your trip, like two to three months, because you would never get one if you just walk in.
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