Learn About This Unknown Pre-Ghibli Miyazaki Film at an Incredible New Museum Exhibition

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Before Studio Ghibli was established, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata were already in the business of making movies. In fact, 13 years before the famous Studio Ghibli was founded, they made another movie together. The movie still has fans around the world, but for many, it has been lost to time and overshadowed by Studio Ghibli's considerably more famous movies.

Panda! Go Panda! was made by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata in 1972. The first Studio Ghibli movie, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, didn't come to theaters until 1984 — 12 years later. And now, to celebrate the legacy of Panda! Go Panda!a special interactive exhibit has opened in a museum called Ishinomori Manga Museum in Miyagi, Japan.

Panda! Go Panda! was released at the height of the «panda craze» in Japan, which was initiated when a pair of pandas were loaned to Ueno Zoo from China. It is a children's story about a lonely girl named Mimiko who finds a baby panda named Panny sleeping on her back porch. After the father of the panda, PapaPanda, arrives, they decide to become a family together, with Mimiko as the baby panda's mother.

Panda! Go Panda! was extremely well received in Japan when it was released, with its simple but strange concept endearing it to many people. This was especially significant to Miyazaki and Takahata as they were coming off a disappointing rejection from the creator of Pippy Longstocking after the duo sought permission to create their own animated version. Many of their original ideas for that film made it into Panda! Go Panda! though, so their dreams were still made, and more.

The exhibition at Ishinomori Manga Museum is a fun, fully interactive one that has so much more than just reading plaques and learning about the movie. It has some of the original storyboards used in the movie's production, recreations of some of the sets and scenes, original merchandise and posters from the movie's first release, and, of course, plenty of places to take photos. The storyboards are