Today was the day Id booked for the visit to the Ghibli museum. The ticket had to be purchased in advance outside of Japan, which I did at the JTB travel office in downtown Vancouver.
Studio Ghibli makes the anime films of Hayao Miyazaki, such as Spirited Away, Howls Moving Castle, and the recent one The Wind Rises. There are many others that did not make it the theatres in North America, but I have a DVD set of them and they are just great.
The museum is in Mitaka, a suburb town about a half hour train ride from the center of Tokyo. It doesnt open until 10am, so I took my time in the morning and got there before noon. I walked straight into the museum, but if Id got there and hour later I would have been waiting in line.
One of the first displays on the ground floor is a really cool 3D animation using strobe lights. It looks like the statue beside you is running, when it is actually a series of statues spinning in a circle synchronized to the strobe light.
There are several educational-type displays on the optics of movie projection and animation.
The most interesting part for me was the set of displays on the artwork of the animation. There were drawing on clear plastic sheets laid on top of a watercolor background, to show the concept of layering in animation. A typical artist studio had books on gardening, for the illustration of plants and garden settings, old photographs of cityscapes, even frames of a movie film, to show how to draw the animation of something running, for example. There were books of sketches of the characters for the different anime movies.
There was a short anime film that you got a ticket for upon entry, in Japanese. I was a bit surprised at the shortage of English signage, given the international audience. There are a couple of shops. One sells story books and books of the art of a movie. Another sells trinkets, stuffed anime figures, T-shirts, and soundtrack CDs.
On the roof was a garden with a statue from the movie Laputa.
Studio Ghibli makes the anime films of Hayao Miyazaki, such as Spirited Away, Howls Moving Castle, and the recent one The Wind Rises. There are many others that did not make it the theatres in North America, but I have a DVD set of them and they are just great.
The museum is in Mitaka, a suburb town about a half hour train ride from the center of Tokyo. It doesnt open until 10am, so I took my time in the morning and got there before noon. I walked straight into the museum, but if Id got there and hour later I would have been waiting in line.
There are several educational-type displays on the optics of movie projection and animation.
The most interesting part for me was the set of displays on the artwork of the animation. There were drawing on clear plastic sheets laid on top of a watercolor background, to show the concept of layering in animation. A typical artist studio had books on gardening, for the illustration of plants and garden settings, old photographs of cityscapes, even frames of a movie film, to show how to draw the animation of something running, for example. There were books of sketches of the characters for the different anime movies.
There was a short anime film that you got a ticket for upon entry, in Japanese. I was a bit surprised at the shortage of English signage, given the international audience. There are a couple of shops. One sells story books and books of the art of a movie. Another sells trinkets, stuffed anime figures, T-shirts, and soundtrack CDs.
On the roof was a garden with a statue from the movie Laputa.
No comments:
Post a Comment