Ultimate guide to Ghibli Park: attractions, restaurants, shops, tickets, free areas and more

This café is located in an outdoor area of Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse and its aviation-themed interior is reminiscent of the Ghibli movie ‘Porco Rosso’ (1992). You can choose from a large selection of sandwiches and pizza, including the ketchup spaghetti sandwich (¥650) and miso cutlet pizza (¥900) pictured above. Each meal comes with a little flag that features a Ghibli motif.

Inside Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse, you’ll find the Milk Stand Siberi-An. Here you can pick up a castella cake sandwich with sweet bean jelly filling (¥380). This treat is known from the Ghibli movie ‘The Wind Rises’ (2013) and is best paired with a bottle of milk (¥220).

Ghibli Park’s north entrance is home to the souvenir shop and cafeteria Rotanda Kazegaoka, which is located in two separate buildings and accessible without a Ghibli Park ticket. The eatery offers Japanese-style sweets, including matcha parfaits (¥1,000) and anmitsu (syrup-covered bean jam with fruit, ¥950), plus light meals such as onigiri (from ¥180). You can choose from ten different types of onigiri, but we recommend the ketchup-flavoured ‘napolitan’ (¥200) with spaghetti filling – a favourite of Studio Ghibli director Goro Miyazaki.

The souvenir shop at Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse sells everything a Ghibli fan could dream of. There’s exclusive Ghibli Park merch, plush toys, figurines, handkerchiefs, postcards, stationery, hats, magnets and much more. Popular souvenirs include plush toys of the ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ Cat Bus and the Kashira characters from ‘Spirited Away’, the funny green heads from Yubaba’s office (pictured above in the photo’s upper right-hand corner).

This small shop is located next to the ‘Dondoko-do’ statue and sells a range of Ghibli-themed omamori lucky charms, ema votive plates and goshuin-cho temple seal books. Note that you’ll need a ticket to the Dondoko Forest area to shop here.

Dondoko-dokoro is a small souvenir shop at the entrance to the Dondoko Forest area. It’s open to all park visitors and you can shop for Ghibli-themed umbrellas, hats and towels as well as snacks and drinks.

Rotanda Kazegaoka is located at Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park’s north entrance. You don’t need a Ghibli Park ticket to browse its large selection of plush toys, T-shirts, tote bags, tumblers, notebooks and more. You can even pick up straw hats like the kind worn by some of the main female characters in Ghibli movies – think Sophie from ‘Howl’s Moving Castle, Mei from ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ or Shizuku from ‘Whisper of the Heart’.

Across from Rotanda Kazegaoka, you’ll find a Lawson convenience store with two shelves full of Ghibli merchandise, ranging from puzzles and calendars to postcards and stationery. The highlight, however, is a set of Ghibli Park postage stamps that commemorate the opening of Ghibli Park.

It's now possible to buy tickets from overseas through Ghibli Park's international ticket site. Tickets go on sale from the 10th of every month about three months in advance. For example, tickets until the end of September go on sale on June 10.

Currently, it's only possible to use this site to buy tickets for Ghibli's Grand Warehouse. Entry times are also limited, with 12noon and 2pm the only entry times offered as of now.

Tickets for Ghibli's Grand Warehouse through the international site cost ¥2,000 for adults on weekdays (children aged four to 12 ¥1,000) and ¥2,500 (¥1,250) on weekends and holidays.

The Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park is open to the public for free. However, each Ghibli-themed area has its own entry fee. As mentioned above, the international ticket site currently only sells tickets for Ghibli's Grand Warehouse. So if you want to visit the park's other areas, you can use Lawson's Boo-Woo Tickets service.

Tickets are sold on a first-come, first-served basis. To avoid overcrowding, Ghibli Park asks you to pick a specific date and time as well as your preferred area during the booking process. Once you've created an account with the booking site, see here for tickets to the Hill of Youth area, here for Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse and here for Dondoko Forest. Note that Hill of Youth tickets will include entry to Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse for visits from February 2023.

Price overview:

Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse
Weekdays ¥2,000 (children ¥1,000), weekends and holidays ¥2,500 (children ¥1,250)

Hill of Youth
For visits until January 2023: ¥1,000 (children ¥500)
For visits from February 2023 with access to Ghibli’s Large Warehouse: weekdays ¥3,000 (children ¥1,500), weekends and holidays ¥3,500 (children ¥1,750)

Dondoko Forest
¥1,000 (children ¥500)

The easiest way to get your hands on the coveted tickets is to book a package deal via JTB travel agency. There are two accommodation plans in Nagoya: one with entry to all three Ghibli Park areas and the other with just admission to Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse. The former package, which includes an overnight stay at the Meitetsu Grand Hotel, for example, starts at ¥14,500 per person per night. You can also add a flight or shinkansen ticket to your booking.

Note that if you book a JTB package, your entry time for the Ghibli Park is between 10am and 1pm.

Pro tip: The Hill of Youth area and Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse are separated by a five-minute walk, but you’ll need about 20 minutes to reach Dondoko Forest. Based on our experience, you’ll spend about an hour at the Hill of Youth area and two hours in Dondoko Forest. We recommend entering Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse before 12noon. Head straight to the special exhibition and the souvenir shop to avoid long wait times in the afternoon. Before you go, make sure to download this adorable Ghibli Park map.

Inside the Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park you’ll find a number of Ghibli-themed attractions that are free to enjoy such as the ‘Spirited Away’ area complete with the movie’s red gate and stone monument. The gate itself used to be part of a Japanese restaurant in Nagoya city before it was relocated to the park.

Throughout the park you can find a number of objects modelled after Studio Ghibli’s most famous films. Many of them are placed on benches, such as a hat and school bag from the movie ‘From up on Poppy Hill’ (2011), Mei’s straw hat and a corn ear from ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ and Arren’s sword from ‘Tales from Earthsea’ (2006).

Even without a ticket to Hill of Youth’s antique shop, you can still enjoy the building’s beautiful exterior. You’ll also be able to see a Ghibli-style bus stop and telephone box, and get a glimpse of the miniature version of the Cat Bureau from the movie ‘The Cat Returns’ (2002).

This mystical tunnel is located under the antique shop and is free to enter. It’s a recreation of what Shizuku, the main protagonist of the movie ‘Whisper of the Heart’, sees in her dream. The tunnel features colourful lights on its walls and floor.

The main gate to the Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park is already an attraction in itself. It doubles as an observation deck, so make sure to walk past the elevators and enjoy a beautiful view of the park.

Ghibli Park can be reached from Nagoya Station. Hop on the Higashiyama subway line until Fujigaoka Station and transfer to the maglev Linimo line, which brings you directly to Ai-Chikyu-haku-kinen-koen Station at the north entrance of the Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park. A one-way trip takes about 50 minutes and costs ¥670.

You can also opt for a direct 40-minute bus ride from Nagoya Station. The bus departs from Meitetsu Bus Centre’s platform 24. See here for the timetable. A one-way bus ticket costs ¥1,000 (children aged 6-12 ¥500).

Ghibli Park’s second-phase opening is focusing on the two remaining areas: Mononoke’s Village, opening in autumn 2023, and the Valley of Witches, scheduled to open in March 2024.

Mononoke’s Village will include a real-life recreation of Tatara-ba, the Irontown depicted in the movie ‘Princess Mononoke’ (1997). The scenery takes you back to a rural landscape from the Muromachi period (1336-1573), in which the movie is set.

Valley of Witches, meanwhile, is designed after ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’, ‘Kiki's Delivery Service’ and ‘Earwig and the Witch’ – all three films feature protagonists with magic powers. The area will feature a European townscape with restaurants, parks and rest areas. You’ll also find a recreation of Kiki’s family home and bakery, plus a real-life, 16-metre tall version of Howl’s Moving Castle.

This cosy café in Nagoya’s Osu neighbourhood resembles a Ghibli wonderland. You can access the shop via a staircase decked out with a number of kodama figurines, the small white forest creatures from ‘Princess Mononoke’. The café itself is decorated with hundreds of Ghibli memorabilia, ranging from figurines and clocks, to plush toys and books.

The café menu features dishes and drinks based on Studio Ghibli’s most famous flicks such as an omuraisu omelette (¥900) in the shape of Mei’s straw hat from ‘My Neighbor Totoro’, a blue mocktail based on ‘Ponyo’ (2008; ¥700) or a roll cake themed on the kodama forest creatures (¥700).

Akamon Bldg 4F, 4-2-47 Osu, Naka-ku, Nagoya, Aichi prefecture. 090 7856 0029. 2pm-6pm, Sat, Sun & hols 11am-8pm; irregular hols. Advance reservations are recommended.

Round off your Nagoya trip with a visit to the official Ghibli store Donguri Kyowakoku. The shop has everything a Ghibli fan could dream of: plush toys, figurines, household and kitchen goods, clothes, stationery and more. You’ll find Donguri Kyowakoku on the first floor of Nagoya Station’s JR Gate Tower.

JR Gate Tower 1F, 1-1-3 Meieki, Nakamura-ku, Nagoya, Aichi prefecture. 052 551 1525. 10am-9pm daily.