Bringing Ghibli’s Animated Worlds into Our Own: The Ghibli Park and Ghibli Exhibition

Designed by Goro Miyazaki, son of Hayao Miyazaki and the director of several Ghibli films, Ghibli Park is not your ordinary theme park. Rather than rides, the park has full-on recreations of important places in various Studio Ghibli anime—explorable, life-size versions of Howl’s Moving Castle and the village from Princess Mononoke, just to name a few. Recently, the Ghibli Park & Ghibli Exhibition opened in Tokyo to give fans a backstage look at the creation of Ghibli Park, the Ghibli Museum, and the works of Goro Miyazaki. ANN was on hand to snap a few pictures for anyone who won’t be able to stop by personally.

The first area of the exhibit is focused on Ghibli artwork—mainly architectural concepts. This, of course, includes the Ghibli Museum (which, like Ghibli Park, was designed by Goro Miyazaki). The area also includes a life-size Totoro and Catbus—the latter you can even enter and sit in.

The next area of the exhibit is centered around Goro Miyazaki‘s film Earwig and the Witch. It’s full of props, models, and tons of design documents showing all that went into making the CG anime look the way it does.

The rest of the exhibit is full of blueprints, models, and actual pieces of various Ghibli Park attractions. The first of these is Satsuki and Mei’s house from My Neighbor Totoro. At the full attraction in Ghibli Park, you can enter the house and open every drawer and cabinet (outside of their father’s office) to see the things they keep in there.

The Cat Bureau is from an area of Ghibli Park called the Hill of Youth and is based on the films Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns. This part of the exhibit shows the design process of some of the models used there.

Chibli Park’s Chibli’s Grand Warehouse has a kids-only area that adults aren’t allowed in. It fills several rooms and includes a patchwork Catbus for children to play on. Here we can see the materials and models used to design the area.

Mononoke Village, the park’s recreation of the same location as Princess Mononoke, includes stylized, life-size recreations of both the Demon Spirit and Lord Okkoto. This part of the exhibit contains scale models and actual pieces of the finished sculptures.

The centerpiece of the newest area of Ghibli Park, the Valley of Witches, is a life-size recreation of Howl’s Moving Castle from the movie of the same name. You can even go inside and explore—and this collection of props and scale models shows exactly what it is like.

The House of Witches is also located inside the Valley of Witches and is a recreation of Bella Yaga’s house from Earwig and the Witch. The exhibit has some scale models of the house as well as a few props from it.

Lastly, scattered about throughout the exhibit are some cool odds and ends. These include manhole covers from the area near Ghibli Park as well as part of the main gate. There are also some awesome photo spots. You can ride versions of Princess Mononoke‘s Yakul and Moro taken from the carousel in the Valley of Witches. You can also see a replica of Yubaba’s office or sit next to the No-Face on the train from Spirited Away. (Both of these are from Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse.)

If you’re in the area and want to check it out, the Ghibli Park & Ghibli Exhibition will be running until September 23, 2024, at Warehouse Terrada in Tokyo. It’s open daily from 9:30 am to 8:00 pm and costs ¥1,900 for adults and ¥1,200 for children.