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Struggling Ghibli Museum exceeds crowdfunding target in 24 hours

The future of Ghibli's animation collection looks bright after raising more than $90k just days before the Tokyo Olympics.

Ty Pendlebury Editor
Ty Pendlebury is a journalism graduate of RMIT Melbourne, and has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He majored in Cinema Studies when studying at RMIT. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
  • Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
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In 2018 Studio Ghibli opened a popup store in San Francisco

 Tania González/CNET

The Ghibli Museum has exceeded funding goals a day after seeking donations to keep its beloved animation collection afloat. 

A message on the Ghibli Museum's Twitter page says the facility has been affected by the pandemic, and a translation via BoingBoing says: "If we continue to draw on our financial reserves, we believe the operation of the facility and planned maintenance will be in jeopardy".

The July 15 listing on hometown tax site Furusato Tax had requested an amount of 10,000,000 yen ($90,814.15 USD), and as of writing it has achieved 133% of the goal. 

Studio Ghibli is an animation house responsible for such films as the Academy Award-winning Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro and the promised How Do You Live? The Studio Ghibli Museum opened in October 2001 and is located in Tokyo, home of the Tokyo Olympics. Meanwhile a Studio Ghibli theme park is set to open in fall 2022.

The museum's listing is open till Jan. 31, but sadly it seems non-Japanese residents are unable to make donations. The hometown tax is a Japanese system allowing taxpayers to make contributions to certain projects in order to receive tax credits.

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