Holidays for the imagination

AMONG the top 10 keywords popping up in Japanese Internet searches last year was “seichi junrei” meaning pilgrimage to sacred sites. Given the number of temples scattered over the nation, that might not come as a surprise except that “seichi junrei” has nothing to do with religious journeys but refers to travel inspired by movies, TV dramas and animations with the end destination the locations where they were shot.
The most popular “sacred” sites among the Japanese last year were seen in the animation hit “Kimi No Na Wa” (“Your Name”).
Such travel is known elsewhere as cultural tourism. In Japan though, they call it contents tourism and are working hard to promote it, says Dr Toshiyuki Masubushi, who was in Bangkok last week for the Japan Foundation’s J-Talk: Diggin’ Culture series. 
Masubuchi, a professor at the Hosei Graduate School of Regional Policy Design and president of the Academy of Contents Tourism, has made it his business to delve deeper into the subject. 

“Contents tourism is a journey that occurs when a traveller connects a virtual picture from a movie, TV drama, animation or comic to the reality of the filming location, which then leads to new discoveries,” says Masubuchi, who has written six books about contents tourism. 
The visits to film locations were greatly spurred on last year by the film “Your Name”, which was released in Japan in August and became the top grossing animation, overtaking previous record holders including Hayao Miyazaki’s “Princess Mononoke” and “Howl’s Moving Castle”.
People flocked to the film locations in Tokyo, among them the pedestrian bridge at Shinanomachi station, Suga Shrine and the underpass in Shinjuku. Another main location is Hida-Furakawa in Gifu Prefecture, a journey that starts at the train station and continues to the Hida-Sannoguhie Shrine and lake Suwa in Nagano Prefecture.
“Before December, all the visitors were Japanese. Chinese tourists started coming after the animation was released there,” says Masubuchi. Thai tourists have also joined the crowd, going round the locations and coming back home to write reviews on the social networks. 
Masubuchi, whose latest book talks about sweets in amine with a particular focus on Doraemon’s favourite, the red bean pancake known as dorayaki, has been actively researching and writing books using the keywords “Japanese pop culture”, “Tourism” and “Region” from various perspectives to explain the fascinating world of contents tourism in Japan.
Contents tourism has in fact been around for hundreds of years, though it only acquired the name comparatively recently. It started with poems, carried on with novels, and began to encompass movies, TV dramas and animations in the 1970s and ’80s. 
The first journey to a location found in a story took place in the Heian era more than 1,000 years ago after it was described in the poem “Utamakura” (“Poem Pillow”). Part of the reason why the Japanese have been able to indulge in contents tourism stems from an education system that allowed ordinary people to study in temple schools and led to a literacy rate of 80 per cent in the Edo era (1603-1868). Book publishing flourished and one of the most famous travel books of that period was “Narrow Road to the Interior” by Matuso Basho. Even today pilgrimages to the holy sites mentioned in the Basho book are popular.
The turning point for tourism in Japan came in 1970 when Japan held the World Expo at Osaka and campaigns were launched to encourage Japanese people to travel alone instead of in conventional tour groups. That independent nature of travel greatly influenced the boom in contents tourism and put several destinations on the map.
One of the key examples is Furano, which was made famous by the 1981 TV drama “Kita No Kuni Kara” about a father and his children who move from Tokyo to the Hokkaido town. Today, Furano attracts tourists especially for its beautiful lavender fields, but before the TV drama, Furano was a peaceful rural area unknown even among the Japanese. 
The small town of Otaru also in Hokkaido enjoyed similar tourist success when it was chosen for Shunji Iwai’s 1995 film “Love Letter” starring Miho Nakayama.
“Love Letter” also attracted more foreign tourists especially from South Korea to Otaru. Masubuchi adds that the Korean drama “Winter Love Song” starring Bae Yong-joon and Choi Ji-woo was originally slated to be shot in Hokkaido but moved to South Korea following problems in negotiating an agreement on the shooting details. 

That loss to Japan turned out to be South Korea’s gain. The series give birth to the Korean wave, which washed across Asia including Japan. Actor Bae gained a tremendous fan base among Japanese middle-aged women who called him Yon Sama or Yon Emperor. It also created film location tourism in South Korea as visitors, among them plenty of Japanese, flocked to Namiseom Island about an hour from Seoul. 
Contents tourism also shifted to comics and animation as Japanese manga gained in popularity across the world. People travelled to the scenes they saw depicted in the comic or animation, sometimes causing problems for the locals living in that area.
One of the famous comics is “Slam Dunk”, a story about high-school basketball with a school in Kamakura as the key location. “Slam Dunk” fans poured into Kamakura, following the exact locations from the beach to the train junction and even breaking into the school’s classrooms. The unexpected disturbance caused an uproar and resulted in a sign being erected in four languages –Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English – in front of the school entrance prohibiting unauthorised persons from entering. 
“I disagree with the idea of a warning sign,” says Masubuchi. “I believe people should have enough of a conscience to know what should or shouldn’t be done.”
Masubuchi stresses that the development of digital content served to enhance contents tourism. Japanese animation started to move from analog to digital in 2007 resulting in a shift from hand drawing of locations to photographs that could be digitally transformed into animation. 
“That makes animation fans feel more connected to the scenes and inspires them to go to the real location,” he says.
The Japanese government now promotes contents tourism as part of its “Cool Japan” PR strategy, which is linked to the official targets of 40 million inbound visitors by 2020, and 60 million by 2030. The content tourism is also part of the strategy to revitalise local economies. Nevertheless, some efforts by local tourism offices to boost tourism after their areas appeared in films have failed. The most notable example is Kasukabe in Saitama Prefecture, which despite being the location for the popular comic and animation “Crayon Shin-chan” failed to draw the crowds. 
“The key success for content tourism is that the virtual and the reality have to be connected through the impact of the storyline and also the scenery. Viewers must be able to relate the scene in the animated story and the actual film location and be inspired to search for the real places. Shin-chan and the city didn’t have that factor,” he says.
Masubuchi also adds that contents tourism relies on the visitors seeking out the sites by themselves rather than picking up a map at the local tourism office.
“It’s like being told the plot before you watch a thriller,” he says.