Fans of Japan’s Studio Ghibli might want to start booking flights to Japan for summer 2020: The studio has just announced a new theme park based on Hayao Miyazaki’s beloved 1988 movie My Neighbor Totoro. Hideaki Omura, the governor of the administrative district of Aichi Prefecture, announced at a news conference on Thursday that a 200-hectare commemorative park in the city of Nagakute will be the grounds of a new attraction planned by Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki and the administrative district. The space was previously the site of the 2005 World Expo.
The proposed park would not be the only Ghibli attraction in Japan: Mitaka is home to the Ghibli Museum, which Slate’s Dana Stevens described as “more of a cunningly designed play space for children than a learning experience for animation-savvy adults” after her visit there, while a Kyoto bathhouse is reportedly the inspiration for Spirited Away.
Details on what the park will actually include are still scant, but Omura said that construction will be planned around existing clearings to avoid felling trees, so it will surely embody the movie’s themes of respecting and embracing nature, a trademark of Miyazaki’s works. The park is already home to a replica of the house from My Neighbor Totoro lived in by heroines Satsuki and Mei. A catbus to get from Point A to Point B would be a nice touch, as well. Whatever the park has in store, we just hope we can finally fulfill our dream of taking a nap on a giant, fuzzy Totoro.
Perhaps coincidentally, Fathom Events is bringing My Neighbor Totoro to select theaters in the U.S. later in June as part of Studio Ghibli Fest 2017.
