I set out this morning for the Ghibli Museum which is a fair distance away with a stop en route at Nakano to see the Nakano Sun Mall, a covered shopping arcade and of course Nakano Broadway. I transferred from the Tsusuba Express to the Chuo Soba line at Akihabara without any issues this time.
Just off the train at Nakano my phone buzzed to let me know that I had a mail. I was shocked to read a message from a good friend that informed me that her younger brother had died. It was hard to believe, and getting that message while standing in a crowd in Tokyo made it seem almost surreal. I found a quiet place to sit down (not easy) and emailed her back. Nick had had a drinking problem but I had always hoped that he would get past that. I still think of him as Patty’s little brother, a skinny kid with curly hair and a big smile who made terrible pizza crust that I knew when Patty and I were dating in High School.
The arcade was interesting and very crowded during lunch hour. Think of a narrow street with shops down each side which an arched glass top over the street to keep out the weather yet let in the light. I also wandered around the narrow sides streets which were an older and to me more interesting part of Tokyo. There were an incredible number of really small places to eat and drink. I chose one at random and had a bowl of ramen for lunch. Same procedure as Tuesday, you walk in, buy a ticket from a vending machine for what you want, sit down, give someone the ticket, eat. It was good but Tuesday’s ramen in Akihabara was better. I don’t know how anyone can finish a whole bowl of ramen. It’s huge.
Nakano Sun Mall
Nakano Ramen Lunch
Back at the station I found the right track and then got on the wrong train not realizing that 2 different trains shared the same track. I backtracked and waited for the proper train. Most of the trains have coloured stripes that match the colour of the line that they run on. This one did not and I was a bit worried that I was not on the correct train again. I got off and asked someone in a train uniform and was assured that it did indeed go where I wanted. この電車は三鷹えにき行きますか？ はい、いきますよ！
From the Ghibli map I was expecting a fairly open area close to a park. However when I got to Mitaka I was surprised to exit into a dense shopping district. I took the escalator down to the street and, as I was early, decided to walk to the museum rather than taking the bus. As soon as I turned off of the main shopping street I found myself in a fairly modern suburb of detached homes. I had a pleasant 15 minute walk through this area before exiting onto another large street about a block from the museum. I had 30 minutes to wait before entering and had a walk through part of the park that surrounds the museum. It was nice to be in a large green space again. You cannot take photos inside the museum so I took some exterior shots before I went in and from various ouside locations where it is allowed.
I then lined up with all of the others who had tickets for the 4 PM entry time. When entering you are given a unique ticket that is good for entry to the theatre where a 15 minute Ghibli film is showing. The ticket is also a souvenir and consists of 3 frames of film from a Ghibli movie with a cardboard holder. Mine had 3 frames of the Mother/Goddess from Ponyo by the Sea.
The Studio Ghibli museum was not what I was expecting. Miyazaki is often compared to Disney and I guess somehow I thought that the museum would be in the same relentlessly commercial self-promoting style that I associate with Disney. What I found instead was a venue that gave a look at the behind-the-scenes world of traditional animation.
There was an excellent exhibit on the first floor that detailed the history of animation from the first mechanical zoetrope up to the modern hand-drawn animation style for which Studio Ghibli is famous. The displays were interactive, informative and fun. The theatre is also on the first floor but there was a long lineup so I skipped it and when upstairs. The main exhibit on the second floor is about the process of hand drawn animation. You walk through a room with drawings on the wall, a desk with a drawing pad with a bucket of pencil stubs beside it. It’s almost like you are looking over Miazaki’s shoulder while he works. Another room takes you from the sketches to the final cels that are photographed to make the film. You can look through a camera at the story board and turn cranks to frame the the shot. Here is a crude example of the process using only a white board and an iPhone as the camera.
Also on the second floor are the gift shop and bookstore. The bookstore is setup like a library reading room with all of the books on shelfs or tables. There is a discreet counter in the back corner where you can buy any of the books on display once you are finished reading. There are also outdoor patios and a cafe. Last is the famous cat bus room. There were many children playing in and on a life-size cat bus. It looked like a lot of fun. Too bad that pictures are not allowed inside the museum.
From one of the patios there is an outdoor spiral staircase up to the roof which is a garden. The main feature here is a very large statue of the robot from Laputa: Castle in the Sky. Everyone lined up to get their picture taken with the robot. The person in line behind you usually took your picture for you. My turn came and the couple behind me took my picture with my iPhone. They seemed to have a little difficulty but there was a picture of me on the screen when I got my phone back. Something was not right though as the photo was not there later. I’m kind of disappointed.
The crowds were thinning out so I lined up for the movie. It was a 16 minute film titled くじらとり, “Whale Hunt” in English although I read it as whale bird which is likely wrong. It’s hard to tell with hiragana. The film is about elementary school children who build a pretend boat out of blocks in their classroom. The pretend slowly becomes real and they have an adventure on the ocean fishing for a whale. They lasso a whale with a rope but rather than catching it the whale ends up towing them back to shore after a fierce storm. It all ends peacefully and the whale swims away decorated by a wreath of flowers that the children have made.
Whale Hunt
The process of creating an animated movie using thousands of individual hand drawings that Ghibli has used for its films is fast being replaced by techniques that use computers instead. The Ghibli museum does an excellent job of capturing for posterity the more traditional process.
The sky had gotten very cloudy and there was a chilly wind blowing. I expected to get wet on the way back to the station but it didn’t happen. I had not seen anyone wearing raincoats and was wondering what people do to stay dry while riding their bikes. Use umbrellas? Maybe I’ll find out before I leave. It gets dark early here compared to Vancouver and it was dusk by the time I had walked back to the station. On the way back I happened to walk by the office of the Asahi Shinbun which I sometimes read online. At 5:30 it was brightly lit and all desks still had people at them busily working. At the top of the escalator there was a guy with a really loud megaphone haranguing the people as they walked past. I’m not sure what it all about but from the grimaces on peoples’ faces he was not popular. It had the tone of some sort of political/religious rant but was too distorted for me to pick out any words.
The trains home were the most crowded that I have been on, really packed and hot. It was a relief to get outside into the cool air. I stopped at a grocery store at the Minami-Senju station, bought something for supper and walked back the the hotel.
Bento Supper