Mitaka Forest Ghibli Museum

In 2001, the Mitaka no Mori Jiburi Bijutsukan, or more commonly known as Ghibli Museum was officially openend on October 1st, 2001 after three years of planning. Hayao Miyazaki had designed the museum himself by using drawn storyboards similar to the ones he makes for his films. The designed was influenced by European architecture such as the hilltop village of Calcata in Italy. Miya-san had his own visions while planning and designing the museum that could be found here.

the museum plan

The museum have two types of exhibitions, permanent and also special exhibitions that presents other animation work. The permanent exhibitions are house at the bottom floor and the first floor. The exhibit room in bottom floor shows the history and science of animation while on the first floor, a mock-up of an animation studio is set up with sketches, story boards, reference material and so on. The process of creating an animated film from sketches, storyboarding, keyframing, cleanup, coloring, background painting and so on are also shown.

cafe in the museum

one of the characters from Laputa: Castle in the Sky

a cute signboard with the wood spirit, Totoro's character

ghibli museum's logo

ticket booth

The motto of Ghibli Museum is 迷子になろうよ、いっしょに Maigo ni narō yo, isshoni, loosely translated as "let's become lost children together" or "let's lose our way together" as translated in the English leaflet.


This is indeed a wonderful place to revert back to the sweet ol' time. For more information, there is an illustrated guide here.