An ordinary bus stop in rural Japan is the site of a scene in the 2016 animated movie Kimi no Na wa, released in English as Your Name. The highest-grossing animated film in Japan as well as the fourth-highest Japanese movie overall, Kimi no Na wa went on to witness immense success internationally, particularly in China, and in the process, it brought fame to few places one wouldn’t otherwise expect to be tourist destinations.
While American tourists are familiar with the idea of visiting places where TV shows or movies were filmed or set, fans of Japanese anime also visit the locations of their homegrown animated films. For anime with real-life settings, artists often sketch backgrounds making use of reference material of actual places, including everyday ones.
Which was once considered a fairly obscure hobby, anime pilgrimage or anime tourism has become mainstream with the value of tourism dollars being recognized.
Tags: Anime tourism
