Your Neighbor Totoro

experience05_02Scott sez: "A replica of the Kusakabe residence, the house featured in Hayao Miyazaki's 1988 animated masterpiece My Neighbor Totoro, will be built for EXPO 2005 being held in Aichi, Japan, from 25 March – 25 September, 2005. It will be constructed within the woods of the Expo site using techniques of the early Showa era and will undergo artificial aging. The furnishings will also be made to reflect the movie as faithfully as possible within the woods of the Expo site. Visitors will be able to freely explore the house, looking inside closets and chests and touching things, just like the heroines Satsuki and Mei did in the film when they first arrived at the house. Wow. All we need now is a Cat-bus to get us there." Link

Update Jason sez: Re: Totoro House, Scott writes "All we need now is a Cat-bus to get us there," which reminded me of the Studio Ghibli Museum in greater Tokyo that I had the pleasure of visiting 2 years ago.

Among the features is a life-size catbus that children can play in.

When I was there, the Cat Bus was in a giant ball pit! Visitors were prohibited from taking pictures of it, so maybe this image is dated.

The museum itself is a fantastic building with spiral staircases and child size doorways.

And the best part was the life size metal statue of a Laputa robot on the roof.