The tables are turned on the man-eating parakeets from The Boy and the Heron.

Ever since Studio Ghibli’s Ghibli Park fully opened in Aichi Prefecture in March this year, additional upgrades and new releases have been rolled out to keep visitors coming back for more anime magic every month.

Now, the park has announced even more new updates, with the first being changes to the menu at the Transcontinental Flight Cafe in Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse. These changes are designed to give a more Italian flair to the fare at the cafe, which takes its inspiration from long-distance flight pilots, and the food they might eat with one hand while flying their planes.

▼ The Transcontinental Flight Cafe

Image: PR Times

The two new savoury options landing at the cafe are the Egg Sandwich (800 yen [US$5.23]) and the Salmon and Spinach Sandwich (1,000 yen), both of which are made with Italian-style breads that are tantalisingly crunchy on the outside and satisfyingly chewy on the inside.

▼ The two new options below join staples like the BLT, Neapolitan, and Ham and Cheese sandwich, which are already on the menu.

The Italian theme takes flight on the sweets menu as well, with a new Baba (600 yen), Monte Bianco (900 yen), and Maritozzo (600 yen), the latter of which will be sold from 2:00 p.m. each day. The maritozzo (pictured below) has largely disappeared from Japanese sweets stores after it boomed in popularity a few years back, so it’s nice to see it living on at the Transcontinental Flight Cafe.

The most exciting addition to the menu is the “Inkopan“, which literally translates as “Parakeet Bread“. There are three types to choose from, each designed to look like one of the human-sized, man-eating parakeets from Studio Ghibli’s latest movie, The Boy and the Heron.

▼ Sold at the cafe’s terrace, where you can also purchase gelato, these parakeets are actually chilled melon breads, filled with delicious cream centres.

There’s more new food to be found at another section of the park, in the Valley of Witches. This area, dedicated to Studio Ghibli’s witches, has two eateries, with the first being Guchokipanya Bakery, where you’ll find the Caramel Cornet (600 yen), which contains a caramel custard cream, freshly piped inside each pastry.

The second eatery is the Flying Oven, a sit-down restaurant where you can order a new Frog Yaki (“Baked Frog”) flavour — Apple Custard. This new filling tastes like an apple pie, with the frog-like shape making it the most magical pie you’ve ever eaten.

Another bonus for visitors to the area is a new photo panel, which has been set up outside Howl’s Moving Castle. Here, you can pose with the central characters of Howl and Sophie in their picturesque movie setting that’s been so beautifully brought to life.

While the new additions above are waiting to please visitors from 14 December, tickets to enter the park are sold two months in advance, on the 10th of each month, which is why the park is also announcing the monthly short film that will screen at Cinema Orion in Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse in February.

Image: PR Times

The movie of the month for February is Chuzumo, which goes by the English title, “A Sumo Wrestler’s Tail“. Like all movies that screen at Cinema Orion, this 13-minute film is one of 12 shorts usually screened exclusively at the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo. This particular film, released in 2010, is an adaptation of a traditional Japanese folktale, and has been widely lauded as one of the studio’s most captivating shorts.

The new foods at the Valley of Witches will only be available until 3 February, so if you’d like to try them, along with the mouse-centric short film, there’s only a short window of opportunity available. However, if you prefer to munch on parakeets over apple-flavoured frogs, you have a whole month of days to choose from, with February tickets on sale from 10 December.

Related: Ghibli Park
Source, images: Press release ©Studio Ghibli, ©2010 Studio Ghibli unless otherwise stated
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