Ghibli Park gives you a chance to experience a traditional Japanese summer festival and to take home multiple Ponyos if you’ve got the right skills.

Japan’s summer festivals are somewhat like county fairs in the U.S. At both types of events there are fireworks, street food stalls, and carnival games.

Of course, once you get down to the finer details, there are plenty of differences, too. You won’t find fireworks shaped like anime character Doraemon or stands selling takoyaki (octopus dumplings) in America, for example, and also unique to Japanese festival are kingyo sukui (goldfish catching) booths.

Kingyo sukui is a game in which you purchase a paper net and use it to scoop goldfish into a bowl. Any fish you scoop in are yours to take home as new pets, but the paper is thin and tears easily, so it takes a deft, delicate touch to catch any.

This summer, though, Ghibli Park, the theme park in Aichi Prefecture dedicated to the anime films of Studio Ghibli, is putting its own spin on kingyo sukui by inviting you to catch not goldfish, but fish girl Ponyo, star of the Ghibli anime of the same name.

Technically, this is what’s called super ball sukui, a kingyo sukui variant where instead of scooping up live fish, players use their net to capture little high-bounce rubber balls. The rules are the same: you keep scooping until your net breaks, and take home whatever you can get into your bowl. Some people ever prefer super ball sukui to kingyo sukui, since the latter means you’ve got living creatures you’ll now need to take care of, and also puts pressure on you to get home quickly and find a proper aquarium for your new pets, since goldfish are given to winners in a plastic bag filled with water.

So instead of those worries and responsibilities, Ghibli Park’s Ponyo super balls have either a little figure of the character inside the ball, or a piece of artwork from the movie. Either way it’s a fun way to experience a fun bit of traditional Japanese culture first-hand, and it’s especially nice if you’re visiting Japan from overseas, since you wouldn’t be able to take any kingyo sukui-won fish back with you across internatipnal borders on your flight home.

Ponyo doesn’t have her own dedicated section of Ghibli Park, so instead the Ponyo-catching game (which costs 500 yen [US$3.45] per play) will be set up in Dondoko Forest, the same part of the park as sisters Mei and Satsuki’s house. The game booth will be open from July 19 to August 31, but you might want to consider timing your visit for August, because for that month Ghibli Park’s screening room will be showing the Hayao Miyazaki-directed anime short The Whale Hunt.

▼ Don’t worry, The Whale Hunt is a cuter, happier movie than the title might have you imagining.

An August visit to Ghibli Park will also still allow you to take part in another summer activity at the park, making kinako, a roasted soybean powder used in many Japanese sweets, the old-fashioned way, and, if you go on one of three special dates, you’ll also get a rare opportunity to experience Ghibli Park after sundown.

Source: PR Times
Top image: Studio Ghibli
Insert images: Pakutaso, PR Times
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