Star characters from Ghibli short film Mr Dough and the Egg Princess play inside these mini museums.
Studio Ghibli has long flown the flag for hand-drawn animation, reminding us of the beauty that can be born from human hands. In keeping with this spirit, the studio also likes to produce papercraft kits for customers at its official retail outlets, and now there’s a trio of kits that feature anime characters interacting with the Ghibli Museum.
These kits focus on three of the stairways inside the Ghibli Museum, starting with “Staircase A“.
This staircase descends from the entrance reception, taking customers from the ground level and down to the basement floor. It’s the first point of entry for all visitors to the museum, and the way the wide stairs curve gently as they go down makes for a grand entrance.
As you can see from the photos above, the wooden stairs have a beautiful, old-world charm to them, and the stained glass lampshades and windows add to the majestic beauty of this grand entryway.
If you’ve been to the museum, you’ll know the sense of excitement and anticipation that builds as you make your way down this first set of stairs, and that excitement is perfectly captured in the papercraft kit.
Here, we see the two titular characters from Mr Dough and the Egg Princess, an animation short originally written and directed by Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki for sole viewing at the Ghibli Museum, where it debuted in 2010.
The tiny world that springs to life from this papercraft kit makes it seem as if the characters have jumped out of the screen at the museum’s Saturn Theatre, running off hand in hand as they do in the film.
Both the characters and the stairway have been beautifully recreated, with incredible attention to all the details, like the iron gate behind the stairs and the stained glass features around it.
▼ Even the roof has been immaculately replicated.
▼ The stained glass windows, complete with Totoro blowing into an ocarina, are also true to life.
The kit requires assembly, but isn’t too difficult to complete as each piece has been laser cut for precision.
All you need to prepare is a cutter knife or scissors, glue, tweezers, coloured pens or pencils, and a toothpick, which can be useful when glueing small sections together.
Once assembled, you’ll have a beautiful diorama that measures approximately 8 centimetres (3 inches) across, 10 centimetres deep, and 15.5 centimetres high.
The perfect size for slotting between books on a bookshelf, so you can peer into the tiny world whenever you like.
▼ Due to the precision of the lasercut design, the scene looks beautiful no matter what angle you view it from.
▼ The next miniature world waiting to be recreated is “Staircase B“.
This is the next staircase you see after descending from the museum entrance, and it turns a corner as it takes you between the basement’s Central Hall and the Exhibition Room level above it.
There are plenty of gorgeous features surrounding this staircase, and all of them have been faithfully replicated in the miniature papercraft model.
▼ There’s the banner, complete with the museum’s coat of arms…
▼ …lamps…
▼ …so-called “sillhouette signboards”…
▼ … and the praxinoscope chair-hall clock known as “Etorin”, which was created by Japanese metalsmith artist Kunio Shachimaru.
While the Egg Princess is absent from this scene, Mr. Dough makes his presence known, standing quietly with his blueberry eyes and caterpillar-inhabited apple nose.
▼ Looking through the top of the kit after it’s been assembled lets you see the different levels of the building.
▼ Another miniature world, made all the more beautiful for the fact that you created it.
▼ Finally, we have Staircase C, which brings the titular characters together once more.
This miniature scene is modelled on the real-world museum stairs connecting the first floor to the second, where the stores and Catbus play area are located.
One of the most notable design features here is the tiny doorway mid-flight, which is so small that adults and even children have to duck through to enter.
At the top of the real-world stairs is a circular stained glass window depicting Kiki and dog Jefferson from Kiki’s Delivery Service, and this too has been faithfully recreated.
▼ The top-down view of this model gives us a glimpse into some of the features on the other floors.
▼ With Mr Dough peeking out of the doorway as you peek in, this scene really draws you into their magical museum adventure.
Another unique feature of the kits is the splashes of colour that appear around the windows. Bring them together, and the scene resembles…
▼ …the brightly coloured facade of the museum!
Every detail you can imagine has been well-thought out and beautifully designed so you can remember all the fun and joy of the museum every time time you look at these miniature worlds. The superb design quality is reflected in the price, though, as Staircase A retails for 15,400 yen (US$97.31), while Staircase B is priced at 17,600 yen and C at 13,200 yen.
Still, for Ghibli fans with a soft spot for the museum and Mr Dough and the Egg Princess, these papercraft kits will be well worth the investment, and they can be purchased at the museum’s Mamma Aiuto store and online (links below), while stocks last.
Source: Ghibli Museum
Featured image: Ghibli Museum
Insert images: Ghibli Museum (1, 2, 3, 4)
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