Totoro misses you too, but at least he’s letting us know when we can start buying tickets again.

There’s a limit to just how much social distancing you can do in one of the most densely populated countries on the planet, but coronavirus countermeasures in Japan have led to the closure of pretty much every major theme park and museum in the country, including Tokyo Disneyland/Disney Sea, Universal Studios Japan, and the Ghibli Museum.

But while USJ has currently only officially decided to stay closed through March 22 and the Tokyo Disney Resort is keeping its fingers crossed for an early April reopening, the Ghibli Museum has looked towards the future and now made the decision that it will be extending its closure through to April 28.

This isn’t necessarily a case of Ghibli simply being more cautious or putting a higher priority on guest/worker health than the Disney Resort and USJ. In order to provide the atmosphere and experience it wants, the Ghibli Museum strictly caps attendance by linking tickets to entrance times and requiring advance reservations. You can’t simply stroll up to the gate and toss a wad of yen at Totoro to get in, and so unlike Disneyland and USJ, the Ghibli Museum has to deal with a lead time between when it starts selling tickets and when it lets people in, which in turn means that it has to be more conservative regarding the projected timetable for its reopening.

However, there is some good news for fans of Hayao Miyazaki’s anime production house. Ordinarily, the Ghibli Museum is closed for a period each May so that it can perform annual maintenance. However, with the facility to be empty of guests for the next several weeks, the annual maintenance projects have instead been shifted to April, in order to keep the museum open throughout May should the coronavirus situation be under control enough for the hoped-for April 29 reopening.

In addition, the museum says that it will resume online ticket sales on April 10. So while you might be feeling a bit like the hospitalized mom from My Neighbor Totoro as you’re stuck at home waiting out the coronavirus outbreak, if all goes well you’ll be able to see the cuddly guy himself again before the spring is done.

Related: Ghibli Museum
Source: Ghibli Museum
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