Monday was by far our favorite day of the trip. Despite some soggy weather, we were headed to the Ghibli Museum, followed by a stop in Nakano to do some serious anime shopping. For those not familiar with Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki is Japan's answer to Walt Disney. If you've never seen any of his films, go rent one. Now. Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke are the two with the most exposure here in America. I think Spirited Away is better, but they're both great, great films for people of all ages. Fans of Lupin III will also enjoy Miyazaki's Castle of Cagliostro
After we met up with our tour and boarded our train, we waited for the Studio Ghibli bus. Isn't it cute?
This is the outside of the Ghibli Museum. Currently, it's one of the hottest tickets in Japan. Unlike some American animation-themed attractions, Ghibli Museum limits the number of visitors so that the museum will not become overcrowded. Because Studio Ghibli is hugely popular both inside and outside Japan, visitors often need to purchase tickets far in advance.
One of the refreshing things about Ghibli Museum is that photography and video are not allowed. We were told Miyazaki wants to keep the museum's exhibits a surprise for people who haven't visited it yet. Also, children are allowed and encouraged to interact with the exhibits, which is much different from American theme parks where you are largely a spectator. Museum admission includes a ticket to a short film from Studio Ghibli, which is rotated periodically.
So alas, I have no pictures of the inside of the museum, although you can take a picture on the balcony with the giant robot from Laputa, Castle in the Sky.
I did buy three books from the bookstore, however: a program with pictures of the museum, a heftier book on the museum and how it was built, and a book on the Spirited Away exhibits. All three books are translated in English, and all have gorgeous pictures of the museum and art from the Ghibli films. Ask me and I'll gladly drag them out so you can thumb through them.
We can't recommend highly enough visiting the Ghibli Museum if you will be in Tokyo. If you have any interest in animation or film in general, the museum's exhibits are extremely inspiring and breathtaking.
Rhonda and I ditched our tour and headed to the Broadway Center at Nakano. On the way we stopped and ate some soba and ramen, finally. We tried to do so many times before on our trip. Each time, we would look at the plastic food on the window and decide what we wanted. Then we would go in the restuarant...and turn around and walk back out. These noodle shops have vending machines, where you pick the meal you want and get a ticket. You take the ticket to the counter, where they make the meal and you go off in a corner and grub on it. Unfortunately, these vending machines are always in Japanese.
This place didn't have too many options, and we were able to run back and forth between the window and the vending machine, trying to match the characters on the plastic food with the buttoms on the machine. We are glad to report we got what we ordered. :)
We got to the Broadway Center at about 6:30 and quickly realized we would have to hurry. We went there because it is the home of both Anime World Star and Mandarake. Once we got past the relatively normal first floor, the remaining three floors were almost all anime shops.
By the way, there is not a Mandarake in Nakano. There are like seven of them! There was one that sold manga, one that sold CDs, one that sold character goods, one that sold cels, one that sold used video games, one that sold friggin' cosplay costumes(!)...we had been to Mandarake in Shibuya the day before, and it was awe-inspiring, but it was nothing like this.
What ensued next was a mad dash through as many stores as we could hit before 8, when Mandarake closed. It was unfortunate, really...I didn't get to flip through the anime cels at World Star (the spines on the binders were in Japanese, I just asked if they had Bebop and left). But we did leave with some cool stuff.
Happy and broke, we headed back to Shinjuku. We were starting to realize we had not planned to spend enough time shopping, as Rhonda still wanted to shop for clothes in Harajuku, we hadn't shopped much in Shinjuku, and we kind of breezed through Shibuya and Akihibara. And we still had to pay a visit to the House of Mouse...
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