Special Exhibitions

The special exhibition, "The Boy and the Heron Part 2: Layouts" starts on May 25.

A layout is a blueprint for animation in which the position of characters relative to the background, the directions of the character's movements, camerawork, etc. of a single shot are drawn.
For director Hayao Miyazaki's "The Boy and the Heron", a layout of 1 shot was drawn by a key animator, then checked and revised by director Hayao Miyazaki and the supervising animator.

"The Boy and the Heron" is a rare "hand-drawn" animated film, in a sense that almost all the drawings created during the production process were drawn on paper by pencils and backgrounds were painted by poster colors.
The perfection of the layouts, created by elite animators including Hayao Miyazaki himself, could be hailed as the best of "hand-drawn" animation.

By presenting the genuine drawings created during the production process, we would like to offer this exhibition as a place for visitors to experience the richness of hand-drawn artworks on paper and pencils, and the power and the passion within the shots.
Over three consecutive periods, we shall switch all of the exhibits every 6 months.

In the second part of this exhibition, over 200 pieces of layouts, better known as the blueprints for animation, will be on display.

Please take this opportunity to enjoy the various artworks of "The Boy and the Heron" in Ghibli Museum, Mitaka.