Hayao Miyazaki fans will have three more reasons to visit the famous Studio Ghibli Museum in Japan next year. Fan website www.nausicaa.net reports that from January 3 until March 13, three brilliant new shorts from Oscar-winning anime master Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle) will screen at the museum’s Saturn Theater.
Visitors will be able to choose one of the following new titles: House-Hunting follows an adventurous young girl named Fuki who sets out on a trip to find a new house. There’s little dialog in the short, and all the music and sound effects are created by human voices. Mon-Mon the Water Spider chronicles an amour fou between a water spider and a lovely water strider. The Day I Harvested a Star is an adaptation of Iblard, a visionary work by artist Naohisa Inoue.
Some awards insiders say Mon-Mon the Water Spider has a good chance of being one of the shorts nominated in the Animated Short Oscar race. Consider this: If Howl’s Moving Castle makes the cut in the Animated Feature category’and the odds are very high for that’Miyazaki will have projects in both animation categories of the 2005 Academy Awards.
If you plan to visit the museum in the next few months, remember that you must purchase in advance a reserved ticket, which indicates appointed date and time for admission. The operating hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m, and the museum is closed on Tuesdays. Studio Ghibli Museum is located in the Mitaka Inokashira Park in Tokyo. For more information, visit www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/museum.
