Special Exhibitions

A new special exhibition, "The Boy and the Heron", starts on November 18.

Director Hayao Miyazaki's latest feature film "The Boy and the Heron" was meticulously crafted over a period of 7 years. In this day and age of CG animation, this film is considered to be a rare "hand-drawn" animated film, in a sense that almost all the drawings created during the production process were drawn on papers by pencils and backgrounds were painted by poster colors. The perfection of the film, created by director Hayao Miyazaki and a small group of elite animators and art staff, could be hailed as the best of "hand-drawn" animation.

Nowadays, digital equipment is becoming the main tools even for hand-drawn animation productions, and has blurred the boundaries between hand-drawn and 3DCG animations. As a result, papers, pencils and paints are gradually disappearing from the animation production process.

By purely presenting the drawings created during the production process of "The Boy and the Heron", we would like to offer this exhibition as a place for visitors to experience the richness of hand-drawn drawings on papers and pencils, and the power of the act of drawing itself.

We will switch exhibits over three consecutive periods, starting with "Part 1 Imageboards", "Part 2 Layouts", and lastly, "Part 3 Background Arts".

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