Japan Travel Guide: Nakano, Mitaka and the Ghibli Museum

What: Studio Ghibli Museum and Nakano Broadway indoor shopping mall
Where: Tokyo Area, Nakano and Mitaka stations on the Chuo-Sobu line
What to do: Get out of Tokyo, but still enjoy all the good things about it

Go West, Young Man is proverbial advice, funny when you consider that Japan (the “East”) is actually west of the States; but this is also good advice if you find yourself in Tokyo and crave a bit more animanga culture than Akihabara gives you, and especially if you’re a fan of director Hayao Miyazaki. Just jump on a west-bound train to the suburb of Mitaka for the Studio Ghibli Museum, and hit up Nakano Broadway en route.

It’s hard to describe the Ghibli Museum to anyone who wouldn’t automatically go to anything called that; suffice to say, it’s just the sort of magical place encountered in Miyazaki’s films. It houses a life-size replica of the maestro’s studio, an interactive history of animation and a small theater that plays short subjects. But it maintains this enchanted atmosphere by strictly limiting admission; timed tickets must be purchased in advance, and this is much easier to do overseas, from their website.

Why are there no pictures of this fabled museum here? If you guessed “because Jake is a fool who forgot his camera that day,” you’d be correct; but simply that on faith that it’s more wonderful than you could possibly imagine. The ticket booth is manned by a life-sized Totoro and there’s a life-sized catbus inside.

Since you’ll be spending no more than two hours in the museum, to make a day trip of it, why not stop off in nearby Nakano? Nakano Broadway, a huge indoor mall across the street from the train station, is one of several less-famous analogues of Akihabara–Japan’s capitol of otaku culture–and is more about buying and selling than singing, dancing and dressing up. But with all of Nakano’s used toy stores, you’re likely to turn up something interesting; and the other stores, and the neighborhood itself, all have a nice laid-back atmosphere which is like day to the infernal night of crowded downtown Tokyo.

Nakano is about thirty and Mitaka forty-five minutes out of Tokyo, respectively.