One of the things I really wanted to do the most in Japan was visit the Studio Ghibli Museum as I'd missed it when I first went which I was super gutted about. Then Covid happened and it closed, and then while locked down they decided to do some renovations and keep it closed longer and it was basically shut for the entire time I lived in Japan and I thought I was going to miss out on it again. Until!! They announced they were opening mid-January, 2 weeks before I was due to fly back to Europe. Serendipity!
The building itself is completely magical, I don't know how else to describe it it's just so whimsical and full of tiny details even down to the doorknobs and Jiji shaped faucets. Some of its almost like a maze with tiny doors you have to crouch to go through and spiral staircases that lead to no where in particular. There's all kinds of different rooms, from detailing the history of the company and how the animations are made, to all of the behind the scenes artwork and research that goes into everything.
This was my favorite bit as it's set out like spaces where the artists are in the middle of working and like they just got up for a break, and the walls are covered in genuine concept work, story boards, and background art. I found it so, so inspiring, so much that I even bought a set of the watercolors the artists use (the Japanese brand Holbein of course). There were photo albums to flick through of the photographs the researchers had taken on locations, shelves of books they used as reference (nothing specific either, just books about birds or certain cities that are the kind of thing you'd probably overlook at the thrift store). I think the reason I found it so inspiring was because there wasn't any fancy expensive equipment or tools so it all felt really accessible and realistic. It made me want to thrift a bunch of books and paint from them as reference, and I loved seeing that all of the fantastical locations and creatures in Ghibli movies are based on things so mundane.
They also have a movie theater showing exclusive short movies that are only viewable at the museum, I think there's 8 or so that they rotate through, and t one I saw was about a caterpillar and you saw him hatching and experiencing the world for the first time and it was so cute! It also had no speech, just sound effects, so you could understand it in any language which I thought was smart although I don't know if they're all like this.
