It’s been staring us in the face all this time but we never made the connection until now.

Like many Studio Ghibli fans, we’ve visited the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo a number of times over the years since it first opened in 2001, but it’s taken us over 20 years to realise something has been hiding under our noses right at the entrance to the complex.

Before entering the building, visitors line up outside in front of the entrance, and once they’re through the front doors, they hand their tickets to staff behind the counter under a domed ceiling before descending the staircase that takes them into the museum.

From the bird’s-eye view above and the front-on angle from which most visitors see it, the entrance is warm and inviting, but it doesn’t look particularly remarkable, and certainly nothing like a character from a Ghibli movie.

However, look at it side-on from outside the complex, and you might see something familiar begin to take shape. It’s something a lot of visitors may have never noticed before, and the Ghibli Museum decided to bring it to everyone’s attention with this tweet on their official Twitter account.

The message in the tweet above reads:

“A three-year-old boy was pointing from this angle, saying, ‘Mum! The Catbus is outside!’ Can you tell us what part of this image looks like the Catbus?”

Can you see it?

In case you’re having trouble seeing it, one fan superimposed an image of the Catbus over the photo to show the similarities.

The revelation made jaws drop on Ghibli fans around the nation, who left comments like:

“OMG I can’t believe I never saw this before!”
“Children’s eyes and imaginations are truly amazing!”
“Wow, children really do make all sorts of surprising discoveries!”
“Yes, I can see it! The big window on the right even looks like the mouth of the grinning Catbus!”
“I’ve visited the museum so many times and never realised this!”
“What amazing powers of observation! Now that I’ve seen it I can’t unsee it!”

The tale of the child who saw the Catbus is a touching one, and curiously, it’s a lot like what happens in the movie My Neighbour Totoro, where young sisters Mei and Satsuki see the Catbus without any adults around them necessarily seeing it.

With Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki writing and drawing so many tales from a child’s point of view, we can’t help but feel the similarities between the entrance and the Catbus are more than just a coincidence. It’s almost as if it’s an Easter egg in real life that Miyazaki was just waiting for fans to discover, much like the layers of meaning and symbolism in his movies, which we’re still learning about today!

Source: Twitter/@GhibliML
Top image: Studio Ghibli
Photos © SoraNews24
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