Our first day in Tokyo was based around an organised tour on a Ghibli theme.

In large part this was because it is incredibly difficult to get hold of tickets for the museum and an organised tour made things much easier to coordinate.

Our first jet-lagged day worked well for being so structured, with a trip to the Edo Tokyo museum leading nicely to the Ghibli Museum itself in the Tokyo suburbs.

There is a no photograph policy within the museum, so pictures are typically limited to the outside of the museum and the roof garden.

It’s difficult to adequately describe this tiny museum. It has some rooms devoted to very lovely examples of the original artwork or cells that make up various Ghibli films, as well as to film making and animation itself.

There are interesting and new zoetropes that adults and children were fascinated by and a decent cafe at the top of the museum.

Best of all perhaps, there were various rooms set up as examples of the Ghibli team’s work in progress with pieces they took inspiration from, various initial sketches worked through to the final cells etc.

If you’re interested in Ghibli, the museum small but perfect, a “must-see”.