I visited the Takahata Isao – A Legend In Japanese Animation exhibition held at the National Museum Of Modern Art ( MOMAT ) in Tokyo some weeks back. It was one of the best exhibitions I saw during my stay.

The extensive exhibits guide the viewer through several decades of the late director’s career, with illuminating insights into his art and vision. In some ways, the exhibition is also a spotlight on the history of Japanese animation, as Takahata-san was certainly one of the pioneering figures of the medium.

No photography is allowed within the exhibition proper ( with the exception of the Heidi diorama ); some of the pictures shown below are courtesy of the manga website Natalie.mu.

(image below) A live-size display of the anime Heidi, Girl Of The Alps.

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The Isao Takahata Retrospective exhibition offers an illuminating study of the late director’s working methods, thought processes, creative influences and more. And there’s a Heidi diorama ! Easily one of the best exhibitions I’ve seen on this trip. Did I mention dioramas ? #anime #ghibli #isaotakahata #tokyo #???? #??

A post shared by Yonghow Vong (@blauereiter) on Jul 2, 2019 at 11:06pm PDT

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Posters for the upcoming Isao Takahata retrospective exhibition, co-founder of Ghibli. #tokyo #anime #ghibli #??? #???? #??

A post shared by Yonghow Vong (@blauereiter) on Jun 28, 2019 at 11:06pm PDT

(image below) The exhibition catalog contains art work and write-ups of everything on display. Unfortunately the book has not been listed for sale yet on Amazon Japan, but they do tend to show up eventually. I’ll post a full review of the book when it does.

This exhibition runs till the first week of October 2019, so if you’re planning a trip to Tokyo within this time frame and love anime I highly recommend you visit ! Here’s the museum page for the exhibition.

I also have a couple of Isao Takahata art books reviews that you might be interested to check out.

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