The full name is the Mitaka Forest Ghibli Museum, and the first thing to understand is that it is small. Roughly the footprint of a large house, spread over a few floors and a rooftop. People arrive expecting a theme park and find something closer to a very opinionated private collection that happens to have a lift.
- Opened
- 1 October 2001
- Where
- Shimorenjaku, Mitaka, on the western edge of Inokashira Park, Tokyo
- Getting there
- JR Chūō Line to Mitaka (about 20 minutes from Shinjuku), then roughly 15 minutes on foot from the south exit along the Tamagawa Josui canal, or a short ride on the community bus. Walking from Kichijōji through the park is the nicer route.
- Admission
- By advance reservation only. Nothing is sold at the door. The museum's own site is the authority on how and when reservations open.
- Photography
- Not permitted indoors. It is enforced, politely and consistently.
- Executive director
- Hayao Miyazaki, who also designed the building
The founding instruction
The museum publishes the brief Miyazaki wrote for it, and it is worth reading before you go. The gist: small children should be treated as though they were adults; visitors should not be marched along a set route; staff should be able to be proud of the work; and the exhibits must not be allowed to become dusty, meaning the museum must keep spending money on itself. Explicitly, it is not to be a parade of artwork from past films.
That last point catches people out. If you arrive wanting a wall of production art from your favourite film, you may leave disappointed. If you arrive wanting to understand how animation works as a physical process, it is close to perfect.
What is actually inside
The Saturn Theater
A small cinema on the ground floor that screens original short films made by the studio for the museum and shown nowhere else. Your admission includes one screening, and the film rotates, so which one you see is a matter of luck. There are roughly ten of these shorts. Several are directed by Miyazaki. Some run under fifteen minutes and are, in my view, among the best things the studio has ever made.
Where a Film is Born
A recreation of an animation studio across several rooms, buried in pencils, reference books, sketches pinned everywhere and half-finished boards. It is staged rather than functional, but it is staged by people who work in exactly that mess. This is the room I spent the longest in.
The animation exhibit downstairs
The lower floor explains how motion is faked, with zoetropes and strobe-lit three-dimensional models that appear to move when the light flickers. The centrepiece — a spinning sculpture of characters bouncing — is the single most effective demonstration of persistence of vision I have ever stood in front of, and it converts sceptical adults instantly.
The rooftop and the reading room
A five-metre robot soldier stands on the roof garden, weathered and covered in creeper, next to a stone cube. The roof is one of the very few places where photography is allowed, which is why every photograph you have seen of this museum is of the same statue. There is also a reading room of recommended children's books and a small bookshop.
The cat bus
A large soft cat bus that children can climb inside. Adults cannot. This is enforced by physics and by staff, and watching American parents discover this rule is part of the entertainment.
The special exhibition changes
One room hosts a large special exhibition that runs for a year or more, built from scratch each time. Past subjects have ranged from food in the films to the studio's 3D-CG experiment. It is the reason to go back rather than to go once. Check what is currently installed before you travel; the museum lists it on its own site.
Practical notes, honestly
- It is not a full day. Two to three hours is normal. Pair it with Inokashira Park, Kichijōji, or the Jindaiji area.
- Reservations are date and time specific. Admission is by advance reservation only and the museum has been explicit about this for years. Read its official instructions rather than a third party's summary — including mine.
- Closing days. The museum closes on a weekday most weeks and takes maintenance breaks during the year. Verify before you build a day around it.
- The queue outside is short. The one to get in at all is not. Plan the reservation step first and the rest of your Tokyo day around it, not the other way round.
- No photography indoors genuinely improves the visit. Nobody is holding a phone up in front of you.