Interest

Totoro's Home Made Into Papercraft Diorama

This week, the Japanese hobby and crafts maker Sankei began selling a 1/150-scale papercraft diorama kit of Satsuki and Mei's home from Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro film. In the acclaimed 1988 film, two sisters and their father move from the city into a new home so that their mother can recuperate in the countryside. While exploring their new home and its surroundings, the two sisters discover unexpected wonders of nature.

The "MiniatuArt" model recreates the characteristic Japanese house with the Western-style attachment, complete with the Kusakabe family's well, bicycle, cart, and two trees. Studio Ghibli supervised the design of the model from the well pump to the Japanese "to" character inscribed in the roof tiles.

The kit is made of 11 laser-cut color card-stock sheets — including the trees — along with a special sheet for the roofing, a plastic sheet, and the base. The kit costs 4,578 yen (about US$55, tax included), and Sankei suggests that it will take 10 hours to complete.

The 2005 World Exposition hosted a full-scale replica of the house in Aichi, Japan. The house remains in Aichi to this day.

At 1/150-scale, the diorama is in the same scale as N-gauge trains and in a slightly smaller scale than the most popular Gundam scale (1/144). It only measures 110 millimeters (4.3 inches) at its widest point.

Source: MyCom Journal

Images © 1988 Nibariki-G