Dining with Totoro — 400-year-old ceramics company makes Studio Ghibli chopstick rests【Photos】

Plus No-Face shows off his two sides at the dinner table.

Traditional Japanese table settings tend to use a lot of little pieces. You might have a plate for your main dish, a bowl for your rice, another bowl for your soup, and other small dishes or cups for salads or side dishes. And if you want to be especially classy, you’ll also have chopstick rests, so that you can set the utensils down without their tips (the parts that go in your mouth) coming into contact with the table.

And if you want to be both classy and cute, you can get yourself some Studio Ghibli chopstick rests.

Studio Ghibli specialty store Donguri Kyowakoku has just restocked two series of charming and creative chopstick rests, the first featuring the magical forest wildlife of My Neighbor Totoro. These pieces are crafted by Shiga Prefecture’s Meizan Ceramics, which was founded during the Edo period and has been making works of art for roughly 400 years.

Instead of his customary gray, the Big Totoro here has an earthenware-brown hue. He’s accompanied by the blue Medium Totoro and white Small Totoro, as well as a Soot Sprite perched atop the ear of corn, with “For Mom” written on it, that Mei wants to deliver to her mother in the last act of the beloved anime film.

Also available are a quarter of Spirited Away chopstick rests, with, naturally, No-Face part of the group.

These porcelain pieces, which aren’t made by Meizan, have a glossier finish than their Totoro counterparts. No-Face’s quirkily clever lounging pose is mirrored by Otori-sama, one of the bird creatures that visits Spirited Away’s Aburaya bathhouse.

Mouse-form Boh doesn’t seem to have quite the same flexibility, though.

And last, No-Face comes back again, with a much less calm-and-collected demeanor.

▼ Would this make you more or less likely to gorge yourself?

The Totoro chopstick rests are being offered as a bundle for 2,970 yen (US$21) here on Donguri Kyowakoku’s online store, while the Spirited Away piece are available separately for 1,100 yen each (here, here, here, and here).

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