A Ghibli Good Time

Yesterday me & Eri visited the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. I am a HUGE FAN of the Studio Ghibli movies so it was great to finally get to go check out the museum. They have all kinds of cool stuff inside; models, original drawings, film cells, a recreation of Hayao Miyazaki's home studio and so on. Miyazaki is a genius and seeing his drawings, paintings and storyboards definately reinforced this fact and gave me a new appreciation for his work. They also have this crazy animation made from physical models put on a rotating surface, it's hard to describe but basically instead of using drawings they built little models which appear to move when spun around using special lighting... i can't explain it you just have to see it.

There is also a big soft-toy recreation of the cat-bus from Totoro which kids can enjoy jumping around in and a small movie theatre which shows Ghibli short films. We watched one about some kids and a whale which was cool, I understood some of the Japanese but far from all. Currently there is also a Wallace & Gromit exhibition which contained some of the models they used in the film and 'making of' footage. The actual museum building itself is pretty crazy and totally adds to the experience. Outside a life size Totoro greets you at the ticket booth and the exterior looks like its from a movie with the walls covered in ferns. Inside they really recreate the Ghibli world. It is spacious and has lots of 'secret' passages and overpasses and it's given an old style European feel by the vintage elevator and staircase. But the real treat was the life size statue of the robot from Laputa on the roof. Tonnes of people queue up for photos and we were no different. For souvenirs I bought some bookmarks which contain little film strips from Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. I bought extras to give away as gifts, so if you are a good friend and leave a comment I will give you one when I come home in 2 weeks.

After enjoying a hotdog at the Ghibli cafe we walked to Inokashira park and saw two of the craziest dudes ever. One guy is a regular who reads people manga comics putting on the different characters voices. He is very good and gives a lot in his performances, singing songs, doing sound effects and the like. I read somewhere that he has no other job and lives off people donations and any character voice work he gets from the studios. Good luck to him, theres something very romantic about it, telling stories for the love and not for the money, a true artist.

The other nutjob was a guy in various spandex suits, he was setting up getting his props ready (clothes, stereo, wigs, a banana) when we noticed him moving a bum out of the way for his performance. He looked intriguing so we stuck around and boy was it a good show. It could be called 'expressive dance' or something, the dude was just wacko. Doing various dances, gestures and acrobatics. At one point he ran away from the crowd to the lake and jumped up on the railing to display his booty. Crazy. It was a good show and he had a lot of energy. Well worth the wait. Then it was back home for delicious salmon pasta dinner and then fell asleep watching a movie; a good day all in all.