Visiting “the holy land” in Japanese animation movies is the way of enjoying travelling around Japan.

Have you watched the movie, “Your name” which was very popular in Asian countries? made the highest profit among the Japanese movies in the world surpassing the profit made by . It is well known that Japanese animation movies are world-widely famous. We would like to introduce how to not only appreciate but also enjoy them. This is a phenomenon called ‘the pilgrimage’ trending for the past five years. ‘pilgrimage’ is a term of religion, which originally means that you visit the holy land for religious reason, but now means that you visit ‘the holy land(filming site)’ appeared in the animation movie.

This is because there has been change to make animation film in the Japanese animation industry. The more movies they make, the less time they spend on. That is why they prefer taking pictures of the landscape and, visualizing them into animation than creating from scratch with imagination., This results in saving money and reinforcing realism to animations. The fans of Japanese animation movies specify ‘the holy land’ appeared in the movie and take picture of it.

That is how ‘the pilgrimage phenomenon’ has been in fashion. They enjoy visiting the places as if playing a treasure-hunt game. There are many online sites offering information for these places.

is set in the towns of Tokyo, and Hida of Gifu Prefecture. We looked up the filming site around Shinjuku where Taki, the main character, lived. Itomori, where Mizuha, the other main character lived is a fictional town. Since ever the movie screened, a lot of people visit Hida as the holy land. There are several ways of enjoying the place, not just taking picture of the animation but also trying the local dishes the characters had in the movie or buying local specialties. These leads to invigorating the town.

Yuwaku spa in Kanazawa city of Ishikawa Prefecture, the filming site for an animation movie, held no festival until the animation movie depict a fictional one in a climax of the movie.
However, the festival has been held for 8 years since then, and it was held in October 2018 as well. It would be great if you watch the movie and then visit Yuwaku spa.
Give it a try to experience new ways of travelling around Japan. You will definitely like it!