Ghibli Park, AKA Nagoya

Nagoya, the third most populous metropolitan city in Japan, boasting the Toyota Museum as the star tourist attraction, is not exactly on many itineraries. But it is on ours. Entirely for one thing, the newly opened Ghibli Park, that is, for whatever reason, on the outskirts of this very modern city. It is very much a Park, rather than a Theme Park, with wildly mixed reviews, and as we weren’t lucky enough to get the all-access tickets (that are as difficult to get as Glastonbury tickets), I’m a bit nervous what we’ll actually get to see. But, it is something I’ve been wanting to come to since they hinted at its opening in 2020, we’ve got to see it for ourselves, even if it’s only a bit of it.

We’re staying in a cheap hotel that looks like it hasn’t been remodelled since the 80s, in a “single” room. Budget needs must. Once more we enjoy the anonymity and laissez-faire attitude of the locals who couldn’t care less that we’re foreign and talk at us in Japanese like we should know what they’re saying. Our first meal is trying some miso-katsu, apparently traditional to the area.

🎶Totoro, to-to-ro🎶

We make our way to Ghibli park early, and are surprised at how open everything is when we arrive. No huge queues to entrance gates. We walk towards and through a park built for an expo in 2005. There aren’t any rides with long lines, or people dressed in giant outfits, and the park is still open and free for people to wander around. As we speed on up to where we think Totoro is, no-one has checked our tickets, and we wonder what it is we actually paid for. Also, why is no-one else rushing with us to get to Totoro?! Compared to the chaotic stampede of Nintendo fans at Universal Studios, we really start to wonder if we’ve gotten this all wrong. We quick-march our way through the winding paths of the forest, trying to decipher the signs to get us to Dondoko Forest, the area that Totoro is found in.

Eventually, someone who works here appears with a sign in Japanese. In our best Japanese, gasping and sweating we say… “Totoro?”. We’re clearly fluent now, he understands, and points us up the path. Our tickets are now scanned, phew. Before long, the best forest spirit ever appears before us. Sadly, I have to be 12 or under to go inside. Gutted!

A million photos later, we realise it’s only 10:05, and we’ve ticked off the main attraction! Time to relax. We explore some of the little walkways around Totoro, take the funicular back up, take some more photos, and then wave Totoro goodbye.

The Grand Warehouse

We take a significantly more relaxed route back through the parks to The Grand Warehouse, where we have timed entry for 11am. There’s a lake and garden all beautifully maintained. This is all just part of the expo park, and such a wonderful place that’s accessible for free. We finally figure out that, essentially, Ghibli Studios have ‘carved’ out sections of the expo site to plonk in various ‘biomes’ to immerse its fans in the different worlds it has created over the years. So, you can either just wander around the beautiful grounds for free, or pay to get the Ghibli experience. Each section also has its own specialised store selling merchandise speicifc to that section. Within these Ghibli sections, are structures/sets that you get to go inside if you have the ‘premium’ all-access pass, which we don’t have. Still, seeing Totoro in the woods made me very happy indeed.

It’s time for the Grand Warehouse. Imagine Harry Potter Studios, but for Ghibli, and quite a lot smaller. Inside is a little movie theatre, a kids play-area (again, no childless adults allowed), little stores, contained set-creations, and some photo-opportunities. It’s like being immersed in Ghibli. It’s glorious.

Inside the Grand Warehouse is also the exhibition hall, where there are even more ample photo opportunities that you can be in yourself, recreating certain scenes. There’s also a ‘museum’ of models of all the food featured in their films, showing the animation hand-drawn-sketches alongside for all the foodie scenes! We skip the long and never-moving line for No-Face, and enjoy the rest instead:

Valley of the Witches

We now have a few hours left to hit the other outside sections, and start with the latest addition to the park, the Valley of the Witches. Designed around a British countryside village a la Earwig and the Witch, we’re frustratingly welcomed by a restaurant selling British pies! If only we hadn’t just eaten! The rest of the section is beautifully done and makes us feel like we’re back home. Of course, there’s no huge moving castle in the UK (that we’ve found just yet), so there’s one rather large difference!

There’s a couple of ‘rides’ here by way of a merry-go-round and spinning plane thing. The merry-go-round features characters from Ghibli films, it would be far too hard to choose which one to go on. How many do you recognise…?

Our final stop in this section is to go and become a full-flying witch:

Mononoke Village

Our next stop is to the significantly smaller section dedicated to Princess Mononoke. There’s a wooden tower, and a building you can make some food (for a fee), and the two scary beasts from the film:

Hill of Youth

Our final stop is on the other side of a poppy field, full in bloom. Perhaps a nod to From Up on Poppy Hill, or just because they’re beautiful.

There’s very little here other than a mock-bus stop and a house we can’t access without premium tickets. Thankfully there is also a tiny house, that is the recreation of the tiny house from The Cat Returns.

Mission Accomplished

All sections visited, we’re actually a bit relieved the last couple of sections don’t have much to them, as we’re pretty pooped. We exit through the gift shop and resist buying everything and anything.

In all, it was a fantastic day, and I’d happily go back with a Premium pass to explore the bits we couldn’t get to today. It’s totally different to a theme park, embodying the peaceful, calm, nature-yearning work of Ghibli Studios, that makes for a lovely day out.

We did it!

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Adventure – Exploring Dondoko Forest, Katsu on a pizza, watching a short film in Japanese

Excitement – Meeting Totoro and all the other Ghibli creatures

Trauma – Realizing we sat down to eat in the wrong restaurant, hay-fever day 105