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b'As an American, Sam Anderson knows what it feels like to arrive at a theme park. \\u201cThe totalizing consumerist embrace,\\u201d he writes. \\u201cThe blunt-force, world-warping, escapist delight.\\u201d He has known theme parks with entrances like \\u201cinternational borders\\u201d and ticket prices like \\u201cmortgage payments.\\u201d Mr. Anderson has been to Disney World, which he describes as \\u201can alternate reality that basically occupies its own tax zone.\\u201d\\n\\nIn November, when Ghibli Park finally opened, Mr. Anderson made sure to get himself there. The park is a tribute to the legendary Studio Ghibli, first started by the animator Hayao Miyazaki in 1985, out of desperation, when he and his co-founders, Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki, couldn\\u2019t find a studio willing to put out their work.\\n\\nMiyazaki is detail-obsessed. He agonizes over his children\\u2019s cartoons as if he were Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel, insisting that, although few viewers will be conscious of all this work, every viewer will feel it. And we do. Those tiny touches, adding up across the length of a film, anchor his fantasies in the actual world.\\n\\nAnd so, after many years, and much traveling \\u2014 at long last \\u2014 Mr. Anderson found himself stepping into the wonders of Ghibli Park. His first impression was not awe or majesty or surrender or consumerist bliss. It was confusion.'