Dress up notebooks and sticky notes with memorable anime scenes from Japan.

Ever since Studio Ghibli began making movies, fans have long been yearning for ways to incorporate the magic from the films in their everyday lives. Now, there’s a new way to do just that, thanks to a range of “Irodori Hanko” (“Colour Stamps“) being released by Ghibli specialty retail chain Donguri Kyowakoku.

▼ There are five to collect in the lineup, each featuring a special scene from a Ghibli film.

The stamps get their name from the fact that they feature negative space in their designs, so after you’ve stamped them on a piece of paper you can customise them to your liking by colouring them in.

The first design, simply called “Bus Stop“, takes us to the world of My Neighbour Totoro, with Totoro standing beside Satsuki and Mei at the bus stop.

▼ The rainy bus stop scene is one of Ghibli’s most memorable moments.

Image: Studio Ghibli

You can almost hear the rain pounding on the umbrellas in this beautiful design, and the six-centimetre (2.3-inch) square size is designed to be a perfect fit for sticky notes.

A quick message of thanks on a sticky note, like the one below which will be used on a small gift from Miyako to Shiori to thank them for the follow-up support, becomes a thing of beauty with the addition of a Totoro stamp.

Next up, we have “Prologue“, depicting a scene from the opening credits of Laputa: Castle in the Sky, where Sheeta can be seen standing in the cloud-filled Valley of Gondor.

Like all the other stamps in the series, this too is six centimetres in height and width, matching the standard size for square sticky notes.

Sticky notes can be used in all sorts of scenarios, like the one below which tells Miyashita that they received a call from Takahashi at Atom Trading Firm at 3:30 p.m. and to call them back, so the stamps will frequently come in handy.

Another way the stamps can be used is in notebooks, as demonstrated by the “Jiji’s Childcare” design.

 

 

This stamp shows black cat Jiji on the right, sitting beside the four children he shares with girlfriend, white cat Lily. While three of the children are the spitting image of their mother, the one on the end is like a Jiji mini-me.

Like the other stamps, this one can be used on sticky notes, but here we have a demonstration of how they can be creatively used in notebooks as well.

▼ The writing sample here is set out like a diary entry, with thoughts on an outing in Tokyo’s Ginza district.

By only inking one portion of the stamp at a time, you can add the upper element, in this case, the leaves, to the top of a page…

▼ …and then stamp the main element at the bottom.

▼ You can use this technique to dress up smaller notes and messages as well.

Next, we have “Unabara Train Window“, referencing the Unabara Dentetsu Sea Railway from Spirited Away.

This is another iconic Ghibli moment, and the design also has a top and bottom element that can be used together or separately, depending on the occasion.

For this shopping list, which includes items like cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, pork, chicken, tofu, miso and milk, the entire stamp is used, making the grocery run seem like a magical adventure.

When one portion of the stamp is used, all our attention is focused on the characters.

▼ “回覧” refers to the practice of circulating a document around a group, from person to person, such as in an office.

The final design, “Encounter”, captures the dramatic moment from Howl’s Moving Castle when Howl and Calcifer meet as shooting stars fall.

The writing sample here is for a “list of books I want to read this week”, with one of the titles being “Ryusei no Kizuna“, a novel by Japanese author Keigo Higashino, first serialized in 2006–2007 and published in book form in 2008, which is about three siblings seeking revenge for their parents’ murder, bound by a “shooting star bond”.

While the stamp looks particularly dramatic when coloured in, the anime moment is beautiful as is, bringing light to all sorts of messages.

With artwork in all four corners, this stamp allows for a wide variety of creative designs.

Now that we’ve seen how all the stamps can be used, it’s even harder to choose a favourite out of the five designs.

▼ Which one is your favourite?

Thankfully, the stamps are all reasonably priced, at 1,540 yen (US$10) each, so all five will only set us back 7,700 yen. It’s a small price to pay to spread the joy of Ghibli between family, friends and colleagues, and the collection can be purchased online (links below) from 10 a.m. on 31 January, and at Donguri Kyowakoku stores around Japan from late February.

Source: Donguri Kyowakoku
Top image: Donguri Kyowakoku
Insert images: Donguri Kyowakoku (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
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