Japanese artist sketches the encounters she’d like to have with Studio Ghibli anime characters

From huddling next to Totoro in the rain to surprising Sen with low-cost cosplay in Spirited Away, these dreamy scenarios will take your breath away.

Studio Ghibli, Japan’s internationally acclaimed animation powerhouse, has introduced us to a number of magical worlds through film over the years, with creative storylines, beautiful settings and intriguing characters all captivating our imaginations.

For one Japanese artist, who goes by the name momonga on Instagram, the desire to become a heroine and hang out with Ghibli’s magical cast was so great that she decided to use the power of illustration to make these dreams a reality on paper.

The collection of images, called #絵で夢を叶えるシリーズ or #DreamsComeTrueThroughPicturesSeries, takes us through all the wonderful encounters the artist would love to have with some of the anime studio’s most well-known characters. And looking at some of the beautiful scenarios she’s created, these are scenes we’d love to find ourselves in too!

Here the artist sketches herself into the famous bus stop scene from the 1988 movie My Neighbour Totoro, complete with a Soot Sprite umbrella and a pair of Hunter-brand rain boots.

In another My Neighbour Totoro scenario, the artist says she’d like to find out what the taste of their corn is like, recalling the scene where Satsuki and Mei ride the catbus to visit their mother in hospital, leaving her an ear of corn they’d picked.

Another whimsical dream for the artist would be to enjoy a woodwind instrument performance after a magical moonlit flight with Totoro and friends.

While My Neighbour Totoro appears a number of times in the artist’s collection, there’s also a wide range of other movie scenes too. Here, we see momonga catching the train with Moon from the 1995 film Whisper of the Heart.

And here she is supporting Moro, the god of the wolves, from Princess Mononoke. Unlike the heroine San, who appears with a bloodied face in the film, momonga appears with a face smeared in ketchup instead.

Another dream for the artist would be to descend slowly from the sky into Pazu’s arms, just like Sheeta does in the 1996 film Castle in the Sky.

She’d also like to paint a picture on a hill, like Jiro Horikoshi’s wife, Naoko Satomi, in The Wind Rises.

Here, she dreams of breathing in the aroma of freshly baked bread while working at the Guchokipa bread store in Kiki’s Delivery Service.

And there’s a flying scene from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind too.

Another film that features heavily in the artist’s collection is the 2001 hit film Spirited Away. There are a number of interesting things she’d like to do in a magical world like this, including a train ride with No Face…

And a recreation of the nerve-wracking scene where the heroine Sen runs along a broken pipe.

▼ She’d also like to cheer Sen up with an onigiri rice ball.

And, hilariously, she has a yearning desire to puzzle Sen with a low-cost No Face cosplay.

A bath and a gigantic feast sure do sound like the stuff of dreams. Let’s just hope she sticks to devouring food and drink and steers clear of all frogs and humans!

With so many beautiful sketches appearing in her ever-growing Instagram collection, momonga has thought up all sorts of creative scenarios for Ghibli fans to fall in love with. When you’re as artistically talented as this, all your dreams really can come true through pictures!

Source: Instagram/momomomomonga59
Featured image: Instagram/momomomomonga59

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