Studio Ghibli fans, rejoice: New to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ collection—which is already the largest film-related collection in the world, boasting more than 52 million items from across the history of cinema—are 80 pieces of original animation from Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo, his family-friendly film inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.
One of the animation studio’s most beloved films, 2008’s Ponyo (it was subsequently released in the U.S. by Walt Disney Pictures in 2009) was notable for its focus on hand-drawn animation, with not only the characters but backgrounds drawn frame-by-frame rather than using animation cels or CGI. That makes the drawings rendered by Miyazaki and conceptual drawings by Noboru Yoshida all the more special.
Rounding out the museum’s Studio Ghibli animation collection are the studio’s Japanese movie posters and Miyazaki’s own animator’s desk—a gift from Studio Ghibli Inc.
Four-time-nominated, two-time Oscar-winning director Miyazaki—who also received an honorary award at the Academy’s Governors Awards in 2014—already has a history with the Academy Museum. When the institution opened in 2021, one of its inaugural exhibitions, “Hayao Miyazaki,” was the first North American museum retrospective dedicated entirely to the internationally celebrated artist and filmmaker’s work, bringing his animated features to life with a series of experiential environments.
Besides the Ghibli animation, also joining the collection are some more cinematic treasures: Quentin Tarantino’s original handwritten script draft for Pulp Fiction (1994), sets and puppets from Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022), storyboards for best picture winner The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Lou Diamond Phillips’s guitar he played as Ritchie Valens in La Bamba (1987) and animator’s maquettes from Disney’s Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940) and The Lion King (1994). That’s not to mention items from the personal collections of filmmakers including Nicole Holofcener, Curtis Hanson, Oliver Stone and Paul Verhoeven.
There are no plans yet for when the Studio Ghibli materials will be exhibited, but you can currently see the Pinocchio and Geppetto puppets from Del Toro’s stop-motion Pinocchio on display, which should satisfy your hankering for back-to-basics animation in the meantime.