17 Dec 2024 - The World of Studio Ghibli Exhibition

Jerlene's school holiday has started and we brought her to Art Science Museum for the World of Studio Ghibli Exhibition as promised.  Javier was not interested with Japanese Anime and did not come along.  Right outside of Art Science Museum, we saw one theatrical set from the movie "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea".  In this aquatic fantasy, a fish named Ponyo falls in love with a human and brings about a miracle.

As we had already purchased the tickets online, we skipped the ticketing counter on B2 and went straight to the Exhibition on Level 3.  The first area of the exhibition hall features movies from "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" and "The Boy and the Heron".  We did not watch both of these movies but Nausicaa was a masterpiece which led to the birth of Studio Ghibli.

The next exhibit is "Porco Rosso", a film that set in the Adriatic Sea of the 1920s, during the tumultuous aftermath of World War I and the rise of Fascism.

Following is the theatrical set from "Pom Poko".  It's about a story of modern tanuki struggling to survive the destruction of their natural habitat.

"Prince Mononoke" (below) is a profound, majestic historical fantasy depicting the clash between gods and humans, nature and civilization.

The next exhibit is from the movie "Kiki's Delivery Service".  Kiki struggles to become a full-fledged witch in Studio Ghibli's first major hit.

Finally, we arrived at the section featuring our favourite movie "Spirited Away", in which a strange land waits on the other side of a tunnel.

At the end of the exhibit, we had the opportunity to take photos with "No-face", a special character in the movie.  He is shown to be capable of reacting to emotions and ingesting other individuals in order to gain their personality and physical traits.  There was a short queue before our turn to take following photos.

After completing our visit on Level 3 of the Exhibition, we realized there were more exhibits on B2 Galleries.  In fact, we should start our visit on B2 Galleries before Level 3.  No wonder before exiting Level 3, we got to go through a souvenir shop.

We continued our visit at B2 Galleries and the first theatrical set was from the movie "Howl's Moving Castle".  This movie is about a strange tale of the love between a handsome wizard and an elderly woman.

We moved on to the next exhibit featuring the movie "Castle in the Sky", Studio Ghibli's first official feature film about an original high-spirited airborne action-adventure story.

The last exhibit on B2 Galleries is none other than "My Neighbour Totoro", a fantasy story about two children and the mysterious forest spirits that they encounter.

We queued for about half an hour in order to take the following photos with Totoro!  Cheese!

This marked the end of our visit to The World of Studio Ghibli Exhibition at Art Science Centre.