Studio Ghibli Museum Review & Tips
Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Japan is a tribute to anime films, and the technical & creative process of animation. This review covers whether it’s worth the time, money & effort to visit, plus tips for buying tickets. (Updated March 7, 2024.)
We won’t bury the lede: Ghibli Museum is one of the best things to do in Tokyo. That’s true regardless of whether you love My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, or Hayao Miyazaki’s other movies. It’s an excellent love letter to animation and movie-making, and while prior knowledge of and enthusiasm for Studio Ghibli films obviously helps, it’s hardly required.
With that out of the way, there are a few things you need to know before you go. First is that the Current Exhibition at the museum features Studio Ghibli’s newest film, The Boy and the Heron, widely hailed as one of the best animated films of all time. Ghibli Museum will switch exhibits pertaining to the film over three consecutive periods, starting with “Part 1 Imageboards”, “Part 2 Layouts”, and lastly, “Part 3 Background Arts” between now and May 2025.
The biggest thing to know before you go is that you must buy tickets to the Studio Ghibli Museum in advance–they are not sold at the museum. It’s one of the toughest tickets to score for foreign visitors (presumably, anyone reading this blog) due to the Ghibli Museum selling a limited number of tickets each day. If you’re already on your trip, we want to share that up front so this post doesn’t get you excited about something you might not be able to do.
The easiest option for foreign visitors for whom the Ghibli Museum is a must-do is to purchase Ghibli Museum Tickets & Tour from Klook. There’s also the guided JTB Tour that includes bus transit from downtown Tokyo. The big downside to both of these options is they are pricey–the Klook tour is over $50 and the JTB one starts at over $175, and very little value is added. Tickets to the museum themselves only cost ~$10/person.
It used to be the case that was the only option for Ghibli Museum tickets. However, Lawson convenience stores now have an official online ticket portal for Ghibli Museum tickets where you can purchase them for face value. On this site, tickets for the following month go on sale from 10:00 (Japan time) on the 10th of each month. For example, Ghibli Museum tickets for the entire month of December 2024 will go on sale from November 10, 2024.
The site is a bit antiquated and clunky, and it slows to a crawl when tickets are released–but it is by far the best option for buying Ghibli Museum tickets without the markup and without being physically present in Japan. This is what we’d recommend unless you’re looking last minute and the Lawson online storefront is sold out.
A final option is purchasing tickets from kiosks in Lawson convenience stores. We’ve both had friends buy Ghibli Museum tickets for us, and also did so ourselves from within Japan. The problem with doing this if you wait until arriving in Japan is there is a strong chance your travel dates will already be sold out. While we’ve been able to buy tickets ourselves, we’ve also failed on several occasions. If you only have one shot at getting tickets, we would strongly discourage you from ‘winging it’ like this, unless it’s not a big deal if you don’t go to the Ghibli Museum.
Studio Ghibli has gained some degree of global recognition thanks to releases like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro, but many people reading this still might be unfamiliar with Studio Ghibli. Suffice to say, it’s an animation powerhouse, and director Hayao Miyazaki has (rightfully) earned the distinction as being the “Walt Disney of Japan.”
Perhaps the moniker of “Counter-culture Walt Disney” would be more apt, as Miyazaki-san routinely bucks convention and works outside of mainstream expectations. Consequently, Studio Ghibli films are a different breed, embracing whimsical visuals that appeal to the child in us all, but with ample amounts of darkness, subtlety, and more sophisticated themes than you’d expect in animation. (If you want to learn more about Studio Ghibli, I highly recommend The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, a fascinating documentary that can be found streaming on Netflix.)
Alright, moving on to the actual logistics of visiting the Ghibli Museum. Getting here, we took the JR Line to Mitaka Station. From there, you have the option of taking a direct bus to Ghibli Museum, or taking a 20-30 minute scenic walk.
We opted to walk, which I’d highly recommend, as the it’s a lovely stroll and impossible to get lost thanks to abundant signage.
When you arrive at Ghibli Museum, you’ll encounter a line. This is not to purchase tickets, but for entry at the designated time. Once that time rolls around, entrance is pretty quick and painless.
Upon entry, every visitor exchanges their ordinary ticket for a keepsake ticket to a movie screening.
Be sure to take as many photos as you can outside. The exterior of the building is has a unique architectural style befitting of Miyazaki, and has gradually been ‘reclaimed’ by nature since the museum opened.
Once you get inside the building, photography is strictly prohibited. Unlike “no photography” rules in the United States that are routinely disregarded without consequence, rules are to be obeyed in Japan. (All of the photos in this post are from areas where photography is permitted.)
It’s unfortunate that photos are not allowed inside, as the intimate experience has so many photogenic areas. The multi-story Central Hall is airy and beautiful, featuring a gorgeous fused glass ceiling. It takes a few moments to catch your bearings and determine where to go first. We started with the Permanent Exhibition Room. This area contains paintings, stills, projected movies, and dioramas featuring characters and scenes from Ghibli films.
The beauty of this room is that it doesn’t just pay tribute to popular movies, but the filmmaking process. This is downright inspirational, and you can see how technology has evolved over the years, and what goes into bringing Ghibli films to life. I could have spent an hour in this modestly-sized room alone.
The centerpiece of this exhibit is a large 3D zoetrope featuring characters from Totoro. If you’re familiar with the Toy Story zoetrope at Disney California Adventure, this should be familiar. In fact, the Toy Story zoetrope was directly inspired by this one. (Many of Pixar’s leaders and animators are big Ghibli fans, have visited the museum, and have had other involvement with Ghibli over the years.)
The Totoro zoetrope features a total of 347 figures in static positions, each slightly different from the ones they’re positioned near. When the zoetrope spins, a strobe light flashes, making the characters look like they’re moving. If you’ve never seen a zoetrope in person, you’re in for a real treat. I have seen zoetropes before, and I still stood here for a good 10 minutes, marveling at the running Cat Bus, bouncing Totoros, etc.
Our next stop was the Saturn Theater screening room, where 9 different original animated Ghibli short films play on rotation. To my knowledge, the schedule here is random (or I just missed something–entirely possible). We ended up viewing A Sumo Wrestler’s Tail, which was really cute. Each of these films has a runtime of 10-20 minutes.
Our visit continued upstairs, where we saw one of the greatest things ever: the Cat Bus Room. This houses a giant, plush Cat Bus and variety of other characters from My Neighbor Totoro. Before you get hella-hyped for this mind-blowing experience…it’s only for kids.
Without shame, I’ll admit that I had an internal debate over whether rushing the Cat Bus Room for a few seconds of unbridled fun would be worth getting kicked out of the room/arrested/deported. Ultimately, I restrained myself, but I’m still not sure I made the right decision.
We also encountered a series of rooms replicating an artist’s study and workspace. The room overflows with detail, including sketches and illustrations from Miyazaki films, but there are also books, toys, and other things that allude to what inspires animators.
It’s a tactile experience (yes, you can touch everything) that helps visitors gain a greater appreciation and understanding of what goes into creating an animated film. It’s really no surprise that a Ghibli Museum would be inventive and engaging, but this (and the downstairs exhibits) really felt like they transcended a standard museum and became something more.
In fact, Ghibli Museum reminded me a lot of a theme park exhibit on animation. Over the years, Disney California Adventure and Disney’s Hollywood Studios have both had animation buildings that offer participatory experiences, and to me, this surpassed even those.
While the museum itself is small, literally everything is done at such a high level that the size is understandable (if anything, the intimate size of the museum helps make the experience). About the only thing missing from the Ghibli Museum was a lesson in animation.
Beyond that, there is an area for special exhibitions. These special exhibitions rotate regularly and generally last less than a year (you can see the current special exhibition on the Studio Ghibli website).
From this level, we climbed farther up to see some art installations before heading outside. There, you can once again take photos, and also visit the Straw Hat Cafe or Mamma Auito Gift Shop.
While we were there, the Cafe filled to capacity at one point, so this is something to be mindful of if you’re visiting during prime lunch hours. I’ve seen some kawaii foods here (via Instagram), so it might be worth checking out.
If you’re a Ghibli diehard, be careful at this gift shop. We saw people with armfuls of items, who had to have spent hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars here.
I’m not entirely sure, but a lot of these items looked similar to/the same as items we saw for sale at the Character Street in Tokyo Station.
The only thing we bought was the aforementioned souvenir guide, which came with a free poster. (I’d recommend this book–it’s inexpensive and offers photos you won’t be able to take yourself.) The Ghibli Museum ticket itself is something of a souvenir, too.
In terms of whether Ghibli Museum is worth the time and money, that in part depends upon how you purchase tickets. If you’re paying a premium for a tour or some other package and have to fork over ~$50/person, it might be more difficult to swallow. If you’re a big Studio Ghibli fan, I’d say it is worth even that.
However, if you pay $10/person, the Ghibli Museum is a no-brainer for anyone. You don’t need to have ever seen a Studio Ghibli film to appreciate this museum (to be sure, you’ll get more out of it if you have). This is as much an interactive love letter to the animation process and history as it is a tribute to Studio Ghibli films. To me, it felt a lot like what you would have encountered had EPCOT Center opened a pavilion dedicated to animation (except with Miyazaki-san’s creations instead of Disney’s). That might sound like extremely high praise, and that’s exactly how it should be read. The Ghibli Museum is an absolute gem, and something we’d highly recommend to any visitor to Tokyo.
If you’re planning a trip to Japan, we start by consulting our Ultimate Guide to Kyoto and Ultimate Tokyo City Guide to plan all aspects of your visit to Japan’s top two cities. You should also check out our other posts about Japan for ideas on other places to visit!
Your Thoughts
Have you toured the Studio Ghibli Museum? Did you think it was worth the time, money, and effort to get tickets? Are you a serious Ghibli enthusiast, or just an animation fan? Is it a place you’d like to visit? Any thoughts or tips of your own to add? Share any other questions or thoughts you have in the comments!
For my experience, it was hell. The ticketing process was very not easy. I purchased a booking and thought that you could use QR code like everywhere else, but no. I was already at the museum gate, but they told me to go redeem the ticket at Narita airport. ARE YOU KIDDING??? Staff members were giving no help and did not try to communicate either. It was hell cold and rainy that day. Tickets are expensive and I could not get in nor a refund.
Just got our tickets for Studio Ghibli Museum for March (next month)! It was a mission (45 minutes of refreshing & getting close but then getting bumped out & trying again & refreshing more & getting a little closer & getting bumped out again, etc, etc), but we got a confirmation. And because we did it online through the museum (their site links to Lawson) it only cost the ACTUAL ticket cost 2700 yen (1000 per adult & 700 for our teenage son). There still seemed to be lots of availability for other dates & times in March when we succeeded after 45 minutes, so don’t give up. If you miss out on the chance to do it through the JCB, this option is worth trying. It was frustrating, and time consuming, but it paid off!
I should clarify, this was the release of the tickets for the month of March for all of Japan (& elsewhere). They release tickets on the 10th of the month previous for the upcoming month at 10am Tokyo time. So we tried to get on right at that time & it was brutal, but we persevered. I just tried again now, after I posted the comment above (about an hour & 10 minutes after the release – 11:10am in Tokyo) and I got in right away. Most dates still had at least one time available and many had multiple entry times available. There were only a few dates that were already sold out. So while you do have to be prompt – I suspect it sells out for the entire month in a couple of hours – it’s doable this way. You just have to be patient and persevere. Good luck everyone!
One more thing. We found that some of the pages were slow to load. So you’d get to the page that asked you to select your date, but there was no calendar to do so. But if we waited 20-30 seconds, we could scroll down & it was there. Likewise once we selected our date the option to select numbers of tickets was very slow to appear, but it did eventually. Hope that helps. 🙂
Hi there. I’ve gotten such great info on this site… trying to give a little back with something I learned yesterday. This museum is a must-do for my 16 year old. The JTB USA process freaked me out a little with the waiting… and the talking to a … gasp… human, but yesterday I read that they take emails before the actual time tickets become available. This is a huge benefit to those of us that don’t have hours to hit refresh on our computers in the middle of a work day.
Basically, my trip is planned for March 2019. My ticket window opens today at 10 am est… which is midnight there. Yesterday around 5pm, I submitted my 3 dates online… the March calendar was available… I got an email confirmation right away and within the hour, another email requesting I call to provide my payment info. By 8pm I was on the phone with a (very nice) human who took my info and said I was confirmed for my first choice date. They wait til the 1st of the month to send confirmations by email.
Because I am quite serious about these tickets, I did a practice run of the Lawson online release at the time tickets became available last month. It took forever to even get to the site bc of traffic and unlike sites like ticket master, once you are in it also drops you between screens so you have to start all over. Had I wanted tickets for December, I wouldn’t have gotten them before they were sold out.
So… I’m having a great day, knowing that I don’t have to report to my computer at 10 am. I hope I can make it less stressful for others too. Oh, and the 2 tickets w shipping were $41 but my daughter was slightly discounted. Either way, I think the extra money is way worth it and much easier than I initially thought. Good luck!
That’s awesome to hear–thanks for providing this valuable bit of info, and enjoy the Ghibli Museum! 🙂
Most important tip: If you want to eat at the cafe, do so off-hours, like before 11 or after 2. The cafe is small and can have an hour-plus waiting line.
Great write up Tom. I’d used your blog entry for planning previously and I followed the exact same process with JTB as Scott detailed above for this July. Spent a couple of nervous days waiting for a response when they posted the calendar and showed the month sold out, but got an email today confirming our date! One interesting thing of note: I noticed on the Japanese Lawson site that you had to specify one of the four admission times, and I see on your voucher that it also had the 2pm admission time noted. When I called JTB I asked whether I needed to do the same, but was told the voucher was good for any of the four admission times on the given date; to just decide which we wanted and show up 30 minutes early.
Hoping the Cat Bus exhibit is still there; like you mentioned it says ’til May but also “(closing date to be confirmed)”. Fingers crossed they’ll extend it. All that said, how long would you say you spent inside the museum?
The museum is small so if you rushed through everything you’d probably get done in an hour (including the film but not eating)–but that would be a mistake. Like Disneysea, the pleasure of the museum is in its details–portholes full of dust bunnies, the beautiful stain glass windows, surprises like a door that leads to a mirror…
It’s not really a museum but as the brochure says: “A place to get lost in.” To properly enjoy it, I would say 2 to 3 hours (not including eating).
Definitely agree with the “place to get lost in” descriptor, and also that a Ghibli fan could easily spend 2+ hours in the museum.
Considering booking the tour as this is a must do for us and I want to make sure we get tickets.
I had no idea it was so hard to get tickets for this museum. Considering this is an absolute must-do for my friends and me in a trip we’re planning for next year, this is extremely helpful and good to know. Thanks!
You’re welcome! Enjoy your visit; hopefully you get a chance to experience that glorious adult Cat Bus!
Thank you for another very helpful an interesting report on one of my bucket-list-places.
Getting a straight ticket (not tour) through JTB USA is a bit complicated. Here’s how I did it:
1. At 6 am (PST) Feb 1, went to JTB USA website and clicked on the Ghibli Museum link on the lower right to get a May reservation.
2. Filled out an order form on their website. The tricky bit is it asks for 3 date options, but the calendar on the right wasn’t updated for May so I didn’t know whether I was asking for a date already filled.
3. JTB USA sent me an e-mail confirming a May 1 reservation (my second choice) and telling me to call for payment.
4. Paid via credit card by phone. They then sent an e-mail saying my ticket was shipped.
By the time I checked the website the next day, May was entirely sold out. This may be because it’s closed for around 2 weeks for refurbishing, but I still recommend submitting the form as early as possible on the first day for a reservation 3 months later. Apparently there are only 200 tickets available per day for everywhere besides Japan, so you’re already behind the rest of the world time-wise if you’re ordering from the USA.
Hi Scott,
We got our Ghibli Museum tickets the same way. However, on the tickets we received there is no entry time window listed. How did you go about figuring out what time to go on May 1st? We’ll be visiting Jan. 2018.
Thanks,
You can buy tickets locally in Japan ttrough Lawson — those you are assigned a specific time for entry (ex. 10:00, 12:00, 14:00). If you bought jtb tickets you can come in any time of the day (not sure if they let people in every 1-2 hours or whatnot, but you’re not restricted to any part of the day).
After finding your Disney tourist blog in preparation for our Walt Disney World trip, I’ve enjoyed reading all of your tips and tricks and now want to visit Disneyland in Japan. This museum would be a fantastic addition to that trip!!
Thanks Tom – this is one of my favorite places as it gives insight to Mr. Miyazaki’s process and creativity. We went the first time on a JTB tour and went the second time on our own having bought the tickets via the Consulate (I think) as directed on the museum’s website. It was a little tricky, but it all worked out. I also think I saw many of the items sold there on Character Street also, some a little less expensive like the plates and teacups. I’m sure there are exclusive items at the shop. It’s a fun madhouse in there.
Thanks for your report!!
Yeah, I also thought Character Street was a tad cheaper, and that’s saying something, as I think Character Street is more expensive than stores like Don Quijote.
Thanks for this article. My daughter is a die hard fan of Studio Ghibli work. She has many if not all of the blu rays. I will have to mention the documentary on netflix as she would enjoy that.
Thanks for the write up! Great shots of the exterior. This has been high on my to-do list both times I’ve been to Japan, but unfortunately have not been able to make it. The first time, the only available ticket days conflicted with out TDR tickets. The second time, the museum had been closed for months and opened 5 days before we left – needless to say, there were no tickets available (even though we tried to get them within an hour of them announcing the re-opening dates).
Maybe the third time is a charm!
Supposedly, there was a fairly extensive refurbishment after we left and as they installed the new/current special exhibit (“All Aboard! The Cat Bus to the Ghibli Forest”), which opened in July and runs until May 2017. I doubt we’ll go back on our next trip, but I’d really love to see that adult Cat Bus!
Yup! That’s the one that messed us up this past summer. It reopened 3 days before we left Japan and the tickets were just non existent. Hopefully third time’s a charm…