Admission tickets to the Ghibli Museum of Animation in Mitaka in western Tokyo are being resold in Internet auctions at up to 10 times their original price, according to Mitaka officials.
The city, which jointly established the museum with the production company of popular animation film director Hayao Miyazaki, has asked the Web site's operator to stop auctioning the tickets, saying the city offers visitors low admission.
But the operator is reluctant to do so because it is hard to tell whether the sellers are scalpers or not.
The Metropolitan Police Department also said current legislation makes it difficult to ban such sales in Internet auctions.
Admission to the museum, designed and headed by Miyazaki and opened in Inokashira Park on Oct. 1, is strictly by tickets purchased in advance for a specific date and time.
The museum hosts around 2,400 visitors daily, grouped into four different time schedules, the officials said Sunday.
The tickets, which are 1,000 yen for adults, have been selling fast and December has already sold out, the officials said, adding that the auctioned tickets are priced as high as 10,000 yen.
Among the museum's major attractions are a permanent collection that shows the process involved in making animated films and a viewing room for original animated short films, they said.
The museum is named after the 60-year-old director's production company, Studio Ghibli.
The director's past films include the hits "My Neighbor Totoro," "Princess Mononoke" and his latest work "Spirited Away," already Japan's highest-grossing domestic film.