So soon im going on a 2 month travel in japan with my final destination being tokyo. I am planning on going to the ghibli museum in the month of april meaning tickets released 10th of march, however I am already in the country at this point.
Any advice on whether i still should try the international website route or if theres a better way. I know of the Japanese site for tickets however i dont have a japanese address or number for this. I’ve also read somewhere about locals getting tickets at konbinis is this true? Any help is greatly appreciated!
They don’t let you directly buy tickets from the convenience store anymore - you always need to buy them from the websites. So if you wanted to buy it while in Japan, you will still need a local phone number to use the Japanese ticketing site, or find someone who will do you a solid and buy you a ticket off the ticket site.
You used to be able to get tickets at Lawson konbini machines, but you can’t do that anymore. If you want to get Ghibli Museum tickets from the Japanese website, you’ll need to get a Japanese phone number, so you’d need a SIM/eSIM card that can provide a Japanese phone number (which I think are only available though Mobal or Hanacell). You can check their websites—I think they have some pick-up locations within Japan.
There’s no tickets locally either
https://l-tike.com/search/?lcd=30003
Also locally you MUST have a japanese phone number as they send a sms or voice call to you
購入について
チケットをご購入の際は、ローソンWEB会員（無料）への登録および 携帯電話番号認証 が必要です。
https://www.lawson.co.jp/ghibli_museum/
https://faq.l-tike.com/faq/0129/
The SMS authentication is not required for international purchased tickets
Note some tickets do not require SMS authentication. For example the Ghibli Park does not.
ahh okay thanks, do you think cause ill be connecting through a japanese IP address i might get a better slot in the queue than those abroad?
and if i was to get a esim with a japanese phone number how would i overcome the barrier that is the japanese address?
okay thank you for the information.
Pretty sure none of that actually matters - the queue placement is randomly assigned to everyone. Plus if it really mattered then everyone would just connect to a VPN.
The Lawson Ticket site doesn’t verify your address - you could slap your hotel’s address in there if you wanted.
The slight problem is that the phone verification is done via voice now, I think, and it’s entirely in Japanese. They call you and then say a string of numbers in Japanese you have to type in to the site.
Mobal and Hanacell are the only two eSIM/SIM providers that offer Japanese phone numbers to tourists, so you’d need to go through one of them. No Japanese address required. But because you get a phone number, the cost is quite high, much higher than a data-only tourist SIM card.
If you’re talking about when Ghibli asks you during the ticket process, you can basically put any address you want in there. It’s not verified.
okay makes sense thank you for your help.
okay seems then I should just keep it simple and use the international site, thank you for your help!
so just seems better to risk it and use the standard international site okay thank you!
If you want to front the money to get a local number (it’ll probably be something like 5000 yen total via Mobal), it’s much easier just to use the Japanese ticketing site, rather than deal with the International site. Tickets are available for longer (as in, longer than 15 minutes).