After initially saying no to a Nausicaa area, Ghibli has had a change of heart.
Ghibli Park, the Studio Ghibli anime theme park located in Aichi Prefecture, made it pretty clear from the beginning that its opening was going to involve two stages. First came the opening in the fall of 2022 of the Dondoko Forest and Hill of Youth sections of the park, recreating the environments of My Neighbor Totoro and Whisper of the Heart, plus Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse, an exhibition and museum space for Ghibli statuary and artwork that also houses a theater where the studio’s short animated films are screened. The second stage (which itself ended up being split into to parts) added the Princess Mononoke-themed Mononoke Village in autumn of 2023, and the following spring saw the opening of the Valley of Witches, for fans of Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Earwig and the Witch.
That still leaves a lot of classics from the Ghibli filmography that have yet to be represented, though, and now comes the announcement that Ghibli Park is expanding again, and this time with a salute to a film that, up until now, Ghibli had said was off-limits for the park: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
Released in Japanese theaters in 1984, and based on a manga written and drawn by Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki that had begun two years earlier, Nausicaa is generally considered to be the first de-facto Studio Ghibli anime. Though its production and release technically predate the formal founding of the studio, the top talent that worked on Nausicaa would soon go on to become Ghibli’s core initial staff, and the film was also the first time Miyazaki had the budget and creative freedom to truly bring one of his artistic visions to the screen.
At a press conference announcing the expansion, Aichi governor Hideaki Omura said that the prefecture had previously broached the topic of giving Nausicaa a stronger presence at the park, but “Studio Ghibli would not let us touch Nausicaa.” So it came as a surprise when, during conceptual discussions about this new expansion for Ghibli Park, Studio Ghibli themselves were the ones who proposed the Nausicaa theme.
As with the other sections of Ghibli Park, the Nausicaa area will be located within Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park in the town of Nagakute, roughly 45 minutes from downtown Nagoya. A section of the West Gate Plaza, adjacent to the Koi no Ike pond and on the opposite side of the body of water from Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse, has been chosen as the site of the Nausicaa section. The level plot of ground means that no extensive cutting into the topography will be necessary, and looking at the plaza’s current state, it doesn’t look like very much greenery, if any, will have to be sacrificed for its development either.
▼ Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park’s West Gate Plaza
▼ An early concept sketch of the Nausicaa area’s exterior suggests that the currently installed tusk-shaped clock will be retained.
▼ Map of Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park showing the site of the new Nausicaa area circled in red, along with Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse (1), Hill of Youth (2), Dondoko Forest (3), Mononoke Village (4), and Valley of Witches (5)
Following Ghibi’s Grand Warehouse,the Nausicaa section will be Ghibli Park’s second entirely indoor area. This decision was made with consideration to Japan’s hot summers, when extended time outdoors is at the very least uncomfortable and at worst a health concern in terms of heatstroke risk. While the outdoor format does contribute to the immersiveness of Ghibli Park’s other sections by making them feel like genuine cityscapes you can walk around, many of Nausicaa’s in-anime outdoor sequences take place in stretches of vast desert that would be impractical to convincingly replicate in Aichi, and the expansion being indoors opens up possibilities of letting fans walk through the film’s intricately detailed interiors or using clever visual effects to simulate the sensation of flight, perhaps producing the atmosphere of the anime’s scenes shown below.
It’s also worth noting that Aichi Prefecture’s press release included the screen capture from the Nausicaa anime seen at the top of this article, in which the titular heroine encounters an Ohm, which could be a hint that at least one of the giant creatures will be waiting to welcome guests to the new area.
Currently there’s no timetable for when the Nausicaa area will open, though judging from how the site looks right now, it seems like construction could begin pretty much as soon as the design is finished. In the meantime, though, there’s still a very compelling reason to visit Ghibli Park, since it’s the only place where you can see Studio Ghibli’s newest anime.
