A Trip to Ghibli Park!

This Wednesday, me and a couple of friends went to Ghibli Park! If you don’t know, Studio Ghibli is known for its unique anime style and beautiful, fantastical stories in the form of films. I grew up watching Studio Ghibli from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind to Howl’s Moving Castle. Some of their titles, like Ponyo or My Neighbor Totoro, might be familiar to you, as they are incredibly popular films even outside of Japan. The park itself is closest to Nagoya out of the major cities in the country, which is lucky for us. Even luckier, Center for Japanese Studies (CJS) students get one free admission ticket to the park, as Nanzan University is partnered with the park. This is not something I take for granted, since non-CJS Nanzan University students have to enter a lottery to get free admission. Luckily, my friend Nanako won one of the lottery tickets and was able to come along with me and another CJS friend.

The commute did not take that long at about one hour by public transportation. When we arrived, I realized that Ghibli Park was inside of a much larger public park. Entrance into the public park was free, and there was a wide green space where friends and families had set up tents and picnic blankets, surrounded by food trucks and yatai (this is where we stopped to get lunch in between exhibitions). Walking past this green area, we arrived at “Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse”, which is, of the five different Ghibli exhibitions, the largest area filled with the most interactive sites. From a recreation of the Secret Life of Arietty set to the office of Baba from Spirited Away, one could spend an easy five hours in just the warehouse alone and still not be able to see everything. After three hours, there were still hidden alleyways and hole-in-the-wall museums that we would come across and were surprised that we still did not see. Knowing that the park closed at 5 P.M., however, we had to be mindful of time because there were still four other exhibitions to see in the whole park.

We left the Warehouse and went to the second largest exhibition, which is the “Valley of Witches”. Unlike the warehouse, this area was outdoors and felt like a real town. It was designed to be a mix between the German town in Kiki’s Delivery Service and the town that the main character from Howl’s Moving Castle is from. Walking through a life-sized village, I had many “oh!” moments because I would suddenly find myself in the Kiki’s bakery or Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle’s hat shop. This exhibition was, in my opinion, the most magical of them all. The attention to detail that was put into the layout of the village and the uncanny resemblance the buildings made to the ones in the movies made it feel like you really were in the movie. This is especially impressive because all of the Ghibli films are animated!

The last three exhibitions throughout the park were just as entertaining, but much smaller to the point where you could walk through within five minutes each. The most impressive attraction was Howl’s Moving Castle itself, with all of its many turrets moving like in the movie. We were able to take many pictures of the facade, but it unfortunately required a special entry ticket separate from general admission, so we, as Nanzan students, were not able to enter. All the more reason to return! Even though we spent the whole day at the park from opening to closing, I feel that I was still unable to experience everything the park had to offer. My brother, who is also a Studio Ghibli fan, is coming to visit me during the winter break in December/January, I will definitely be returning with him!

** Recommendations for your trip to Ghibli Park **

If you are interested in visiting the park yourself, there are several things you need to be careful of on your trip. Before coming, make sure to buy the tickets two months in advance on the 10th. The reason for this is that tickets are sold on the Ghibli website two months out from the dates of admission. These tickets become available for purchase on the 10th of every month, but unfortunately, they sell out within the day. As long as you are on the site on the 10th, you should be able to get tickets during your trip, but otherwise, you are likely to be disappointed. Knowing that I wanted to return with my brother, I was sure to be on Ghibli’s website at midnight on the 10th of November because I wanted to buy tickets for January.

Another thing to be mindful of is how incredibly crowded the park– especially the Warehouse– can get because tickets for every day are sold out. Lines for photo ops can be as long as two hours, so I recommend that you come to the gates of the park as soon as it opens so that you can take your pictures first, and then take your time looking around at the other attractions. The park also closes at the early time of 5 P.M., which is all the more reason to come right as the park opens.