#recommedation

So, one major trip has been ticked off my bucket list. Having booked my ticket like a month or two ago at Lawson, I’ve been looking forward to this trip for a while. I got to Mitaka early enough, around 11. My ticket time was 12:00pm,so I walked from the station to the Museum. It was easy enough. I walked down the main street of Mitaka and it wasn’t too long a walk to get to the area. 

Since I got to the musuem early, I took a few pics and lined up around 11:30. Im glad I did, since soon enough the line became quite long. The staff allowed people to go in early, so it is possible to get in before your allotted time.

The first floor exibit was a bit about animation history, I think. Everything is in Japanese but there are pamphlets available for you when you get your ticket in the entrance. But, even with the language barrier, it’s fun to take a look at the dioramas, the paintings and the projected film on the wall. That exhibit had this one diorama thing where they had the My neighbour totoro characters in this stop motion/ clockwork thing where it was animated in real time. I cant explain it very well but it was very cool!

The short film we were shown was ‘ Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess ‘, which was a little weird but lovely short film with no dialogue so it’s ideal for those without any japanese. It was well animated and held my attention for all 12 minutes. The ticket you get to view the short actually has three animation cell, so I have some from Up On Poppy Hill as seen above. Nice feature I think. 

Also, the second floor room with all the concept art, doodles and character sheets on the walls was very engrossing. It was amazing to see different designs of characters like Naussica, Mei, Satsuki and others. They also had this part where they showed the process of how they animate each cell sheet. I got the ghist of it. The room also had loads of reference books and stuff, which gave it a great atmosphere. 

The special exhibit on food in ghibli movies was very nice too, though very crowded. They even had plastic replicas of the food, as well as a  real life replica of the family kitchen in My Neighbour Totoro, and the ship kitchen in Laputa. As for the rooftop, you can see the lovely real life Laputa r obot. Not pictured is the two little ponds on the other side of the roof. As for the gift shop, I was a little disapointed. It was seriously crowded, but then again it was Saturday afternoon so what was I to expect? Some stuff, like the clothes, i felt were a little overpriced.  Then again, I got a couple of things for 1,200 yen/ 11 euroish, so it’s not all over priced stuff. I sort of wish I got more background postcards, because they really are lovely! One thing I saw there were Shaun the Sheep dvds....yeah, I know. Go figure!