A visit to Totoro or Kiki’s Delivery Service: a few weeks before the opening in Japan of Ghibli Park, inspired by the animated films of this world-renowned Japanese studio, the media were able to discover some of its attractions on Wednesday .
The site, which is due to open its doors to the public on November 1 in the department of Aichi, about 300 km west of Tokyo, will cover seven hectares within the huge park that hosted the World Expo. from 2005.
Contrary to other major Japanese tourist attractions such as Tokyo Disneyland, the place emphasizes wide open spaces and respect for nature, omnipresent in Ghibli’s work, explain its creators.
It will consist of five areas, three of which will be open to the public from November 1. One of them, called “Hill of Youth”, will take up elements from the universes of the films The castle in the Sky, The Kingdom of Cats Where The Howl’s Moving Castlewith life-size reproductions of emblematic buildings from these works.
— ジブリパーク GHIBLI PARK (@ghibliparkjp) September 15, 2022
The “Dondoko Forest” will invite visitors into the bucolic countryside of My Neighbor Totoro, with walking paths and a playground. In the “Great Ghibli Warehouse”, it will be possible to visit sets of 13 of the studio’s best-known works, such as the train speeding over the waves of the Spirited Away.
This park, whose construction took more than five years and cost 34 billion yen (240 million euros), should become a major tourist attraction for Aichi, which plans to welcome 1.8 million visitors a year when all five zones will be open next year.
Its annual economic benefits are estimated at 48 billion yen (339 million euros). Aichi Governor Hideaki Omura said on Wednesday that he sees the park as a “symbol” and one “ambassador” of Japanese culture.
Studio Ghibli was co-founded by Hayao Miyazaki, director of many of the studio’s cult feature films, including Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) or Spirited awaywhich won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2002.
His son Goro Miyazaki, also a director of several feature films, said the park was originally conceived as a way to pass on the Ghibli heritage to future generations, in anticipation of his father’s much-delayed retirement.
He also explained Wednesday that Ghibli Park had been designed to have minimal impact on the surrounding nature. “If trees were on the building sites, we transplanted them”he specified.
Yuiko Asai, 34, who was able to get there for the first time thanks to a raffle said to herself “Studio Ghibli Fan” because his films are “deep, even for adults” and ensures that he knows the dialogues by heart. “I was looking forward to visiting this park” she told AFP.
Japan already has several major amusement parks, including two Disney parks in Tokyo and Universal Studios in Osaka. Fans of the universe of the creator of Totoro can also visit the very popular Ghibli Museum in Tokyo.
Japan’s reopening to foreign tourists on Tuesday, after two and a half years of severe border restrictions, is expected to attract large influxes of visitors to all tourist spots in the country.