Beyond the gates, a whimsical world awaits, complete with a fluffy Cat Bus, the toothy grin of Totoro and a life-sized No-Face seated on a train: welcome to Ghibli Park.
On Wednesday, media got a sneak peek at the highly anticipated new theme park from Studio Ghibli, creator of beloved titles like My Neighbor Totoro and Oscar-winning Spirited Away.
Ghibli Park will open its doors to visitors on Nov. 1, though only three of the five sections of the site in central Japan’s Aichi region will be accessible at first.
Photo: AFP
Spread over 7.1 hectares of the 194-hectare park where Aichi hosted the 2005 International Expo, the attraction features large open-air areas in keeping with the importance of nature and the outdoors in Ghibli works.
Unlike similar tourist draws such as Tokyo Disneyland, creators of the park have said it is designed to minimize fantasy and reflect the realism of Ghibli’s works.
Among the three areas that will open next month is the “Hill of Youth,” the gateway to the park and featuring an elevator tower inspired by several Ghibli films including “Castle in the Sky” and “Howl’s Moving Castle.”
Photo: AFP
Elsewhere, “Dondoko Forest” evokes the retro peace of My Neighbor Totoro, with bucolic walking paths, playground equipment, and an enormous Totoro figure.
A major draw will be the Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse, the hangar-like indoor portion of the park with various attractions, including 14 sets from 13 Ghibli classics.
Visitors can stroll along an alley designed to look like the opening scene of Spirited Away, or perch on the red velvet-covered train seat in a carriage next to the movie’s instantly recognizable “No-Face” character.
Photos: AFP
Built at a cost of 34 billion yen (US$232 million), the park is expected to become a major tourist draw for Aichi.
The region forecasts an influx of 1.8 million visitors a year once all five areas of the park are open, from next year, with an annual economic impact of an estimated 48 billion yen.
‘WE DIDN’T WANT PEOPLE TO FORGET’
Governor Hideaki Omura said Wednesday it had taken “five years and five months” to complete it, praising Studio Ghibli as “the summit” of Japanese culture.
Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 by animators Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, and has captivated fans around the world with works blending nostalgia, courage, greed and interaction with the natural world.
Miyazaki’s son Goro told reporters Wednesday that the park was originally conceived as a way to leave Studio Ghibli’s works to future generations, in anticipation of his father’s expected retirement.
“We didn’t want people to forget Ghibli’s works,” he said. “But we were betrayed again,” he added with a laugh. “He’s making a feature film now!”
He said the theme park had been designed to have “minimal impact” on surrounding nature, with instructions that “trees shouldn’t be cut down or changes made to the environment”.
Tickets will be reservation only, costing between 1,000 to 2,500 yen per area for adults.
Studio Ghibli already operates the hugely popular Ghibli Museum on the outskirts of Tokyo, which offers tickets only at the beginning of each month, regularly selling out within hours.
Japan is home to several major theme parks, including Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios in Osaka.
After two-and-a-half years of tough COVID restrictions, the borders yesterday reopened fully to tourists, and a massive influx of foreign visitors is expected in coming months.
June 2 to June 8 Taiwan’s woodcutters believe that if they see even one speck of red in their cooked rice, no matter how small, an accident is going to happen. Peng Chin-tian (彭錦田) swears that this has proven to be true at every stop during his decades-long career in the logging industry. Along with mining, timber harvesting was once considered the most dangerous profession in Taiwan. Not only were mishaps common during all stages of processing, it was difficult to transport the injured to get medical treatment. Many died during the arduous journey. Peng recounts some of his accidents in
A short walk beneath the dense Amazon canopy, the forest abruptly opens up. Fallen logs are rotting, the trees grow sparser and the temperature rises in places sunlight hits the ground. This is what 24 years of severe drought looks like in the world’s largest rainforest. But this patch of degraded forest, about the size of a soccer field, is a scientific experiment. Launched in 2000 by Brazilian and British scientists, Esecaflor — short for “Forest Drought Study Project” in Portuguese — set out to simulate a future in which the changing climate could deplete the Amazon of rainfall. It is
What does the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in the Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) era stand for? What sets it apart from their allies, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)? With some shifts in tone and emphasis, the KMT’s stances have not changed significantly since the late 2000s and the era of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) current platform formed in the mid-2010s under the guidance of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and current President William Lai (賴清德) campaigned on continuity. Though their ideological stances may be a bit stale, they have the advantage of being broadly understood by the voters.
Artifacts found at archeological sites in France and Spain along the Bay of Biscay shoreline show that humans have been crafting tools from whale bones since more than 20,000 years ago, illustrating anew the resourcefulness of prehistoric people. The tools, primarily hunting implements such as projectile points, were fashioned from the bones of at least five species of large whales, the researchers said. Bones from sperm whales were the most abundant, followed by fin whales, gray whales, right or bowhead whales — two species indistinguishable with the analytical method used in the study — and blue whales. With seafaring capabilities by humans