Back in February, the Studio Ghibli museum in Tokyo was forced to shut its doors amid coronavirus fears. While the animation studio originally aimed to reopen the museum at the end of March, the temporary closure has been extended, with refunds being issued for tickets dated until July 31.
Still, the studio continues to keep dreams alive. Last month, the museum set up its own YouTube channel for fans to view the museum while it’s closed. So far, there’s been three videos (and presumably more to come) that take you around different rooms.
One video starts at the building’s main entrance, which is decorated with a My Neighbour Totoro-themed stained glass window, and continues down a long, cavernous hallway. Another takes you around a recreation of the antiques store in Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns, and a studio filled with model airplanes and original sketches from what appears to be Laputa Castle in the Sky and The Wind Rises.
The third video focuses on the museum’s Space of Wonder room, which features a large-scale fresco painting of a smiling sun, with trees stretching up towards the sky, and the likes of Kiki on her broom and Nausicaä on her jet glider, among others.
The museum is known for being very secretive and doesn’t allow for photographs to be taken inside. Even the admission tickets can only be bought in advance via specific time slots, so this is definitely a rare opportunity to see the museum without hopping on a plane to Tokyo.
There’s also short films that can only be viewed inside the museum, and even then, there’s only a handful shown every day, and you’re only allowed one admission to the cinema per visit. You can read our guide here.
Take a tour around the museum below.