“Exhibiting Animation” is less an art book but more of a catalogue, documenting the special Spirited Away exhibition held at the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka in October 2001, in conjunction with the film’s release a month before. The exhibition covers the major disciplines like key/in-between animation drawings, image boards, background art, layout and more.

The book’s contents are presented in such a way as to give the reader a virtual tour of the exhibition, with each panel of art work accompanied by a highly illuminating explanatory ( in both Japanese and English language ). Indeed, much value lies in these notes because they allow the reader, on top of their appreciation of the presented art work, to better understand the motives and meanings that the filmmakers made, which is not always obvious when viewing the film.

Many of the background art work on display were painted by Kazuo Oga, who held his extremely successful solo background art exhibition back in 2007.

(above right ) An astonishing volume of key and in-between drawings were needed to realize the fluid animation seen in the film. Seeing the actual exhibit piece must have been a staggering sight.

(above right) The studio noticeboard filled with interesting memos, reminders and doodles. During Freedom’s production at Sunrise Studios we had our own as well.

As mentioned earlier in the post, the book allows the reader a virtual tour of the exhibition that is both educational and inspiring at the same time. I highly recommend reading this book together with The Art Of Spirited Away book.

“Exhibiting Animation – “Spirited Away アニメーションを展示する―三鷹の森ジブリ美術館企画展示「千と千尋の神隠し」図録” special exhibition” art book details :

Dimensions – 29.2 x 20.8 x 1.8 cm
Soft cover, 95 pages
Color, in Japanese & English

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