CMU School of Drama


Saturday, July 16, 2016

A Giant Illuminated ‘Castle in the Sky’ Ship Built for the Studio Ghibli Exhibition in Tokyo

Colossal: Perched in the sky fifty-two stories above Tokyo, a new exhibition celebrates a 30-year retrospective of Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation studio famous for anime films like Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Princess Mononoke. The centerpiece of the Studio Ghibli Expo is a room filled with various airships from several Ghibli films, specifically a sizeable illuminated replica of a ship from Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky that rises and falls as if airborne, complete with dozens of whirring propellers.

1 comment:

Celia HuttonJohns said...

This is so freaking cool! Not only is it a depiction of a scene from a movie about sky, it’s kind of literally in the sky, in a tall building in Tokyo. The fact that it’s kinetic, super heavy, and floating in the sky should make viewers gasp and think again about how it’s built, not just the aesthetics. The illuminated part of it is extra cool. I look at it and try to figure out how it’s lit, because it looks like they lit it from inside, not just the outside lighting. The kinetic part of it it also amazing. That relates to our Science of Scenery class at CMU and makes me want to figure out how it moves upside down in the air, when it’s probably hundreds of pounds. Also, I’m wondering about all the little structures around it. Not just the planes, but the floor piece as well. The planes and things in the air are held by cord, but I’m not sure what the thing at the bottom is. I want to know how they made this, too. I can imagine looking up at this building and thinking what is that, so it definitely draws the eye in.