Step into Miyazaki's world with Studio Ghibli virtual reality

LOS ANGELES -- Spirited Away isn't just an amazing animated movie by Japan's Studio Ghibli. It is a good tagline for virtual reality at its best.

A collaboration between the two is long overdue -- because if ever there was a cinematic world we'd love the chance to walk around in for a minute, it's the one rendered in Ghibli's lush, vibrant animation. Now we finally have the chance.

Scenes from three of Hayao Miyazaki's most beloved films -- Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro and Howl's Moving Castle have been developed for virtual reality by British developer Fire Panda -- and are available for download now.

Oculus Rift CV1 and Vive/Windows users can step into three scenes: The bus stop scene from My Neighbor Totoro (1988); the boiler room scene from Spirited Away (2001) and the meadow in Howl’s Moving Castle (2004).

For now the demos are just environments. You can't interact with the characters or anything like that. But as the film industry grapples with how to use VR, this is at least a pretty nifty grain of an idea.

Nick Pittom of Fire Panda developed the scenes. It's not entirely clear whether Ghibli is working directly with Fire Panda on the project. We've reached out to Disney, which distributes Ghibli movies in the U.S., to find out. 

Either way, the look and feel is pure Miyazaki. Check it out:

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