Heated Floors

In my previous post about our trip to Japan I wrote about how I was sort of raised on Japanese media and pop culture without knowing it. Studio Ghibli was not part of that upbringing. My discovery of the legendary animation studio came long after I had developed an affinity and understanding of Japanese anime, comics and video games. My love for Studio Ghibli, I think, is a celebration of that childhood. Hayao Miyazaki and Co. are masters of character and expression. They create fantastic worlds that would have been right at home in my eight year old head, but I wouldn’t know that until I was at least thirteen when I saw Princess Mononoke for the first time. The anime was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Being brought up on Disney cartoons in a country that treated animation as a genre for children I was floored. This film challenged everything I knew about animation and, really, changed my life. Not all animation had to be an uplifting musical, you could apply film genre to animation and tell very mature stories laden with eco-political commentary if you wanted too. This is what Miyazaki did and I was absolutely inspired. Since then I have been searching out and watching as much Studio Ghilbli as I can. I exposed Rosie to the magic while we were in Korea and now we’re both hooked.

Visiting Tokyo we were able to visit The Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka and we were not disappointed. 

I have probably said this a lot when writing about our travels but, again, I can’t do this trip justice in writing. If you’ve ever seen a Ghibli movie you have probably felt as if you were part of an exciting new world for about an hour and a half. The film makers are always able to create unique worlds that become signatures of the studio. There are certain ‘Ghiblisms’ that make their films unmistakable, and the charm of said ‘Ghiblisms’ translate into the real world remarkably. Stepping in to the Ghibli Museum is like stepping into one of their films, a film in which they celebrate their illustrious history with great fun and great respect for their craft and audience. Within the walls of the fantastical building is an interior that is designed with fun and exploration in mind ahead of function. There were small door ways that only children could get through, winding hallways, a rooftop garden, little windows to look through to other rooms, a catbus, and much more if you were willing to explore. Walking around here was just fun on it’s own, if not a bit disorienting.

I felt that the entire museum was created with two things in mind: Wonder and education. One of the first rooms we saw is one that sort of presents this theory. There are cells from all of their films, a sort of filmography that reminded us of the art, the stories, the characters and how they affected us. After being reminded of these worlds we were treated to an incredible display. Small figurines representing a single frame of animation. It was cute but seemed a bit out of place until we moved on to the main event. The ‘main event’ in this room would be the first true mind explosion of the day, but I won’t spoil it for you by describing it. It’s something that should be seen in person. What I can say is that this room set the tone for the rest of the day.

We were able to see a cute 15 minute short, which lacked the production values of their features but was good fun nonetheless. After that we walked through the catbus and went upstairs to the part of the museum that I valued most.

The second floor has a more basic layout and, for an animation nut/animator, it was bliss. This floor housed things like full length story boards you can flip through and real celluloid film strip you can crank through at your own speed to see how the frames blend together to form an animation. We were absorbing this history of the studio while gaining an education of film and animation. They had a recreation of Miyazaki’s studio [though how true to form it was I don’t know] and a step by step instructional display on how they draw, and colour each frame. I walked through this part of the museum very slowly. Truly, a mind explosion.

Once we made our way through every nook and cranny we moved on to the rooftop gardens. They were beautifully manicured but the real draw was this. 

A gigantic sculpture bringing the Android from Castle in the Sky into the real world, and the third mind explosion of the day. 

I started this post by saying I couldn’t sum up this visit with text, and I haven’t. So I want to recommend that if any of you Ghibli lovers find yourselves in Japan, this museum is a must see. I loved every square inch of this place.