Interest

Anime Tourism 88 List Adds Love Live, Evangelion, Higurashi Locations

The Anime Tourism Association revealed its 2022 list of noteworthy anime pilgrimage sites at a press conference on Wednesday. This year's additions include locations from Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, Love Live! Superstar!!, When They Cry - Higurashi, and the Evangelion series.

The full list of additions are below:

• Chichibu, Saitama (Her Blue Sky)
• Warabi, Saitama (Farewell, My Dear Cramer)
• Chōshi, Chiba (Amagami SS series)
• Tateyama, Chiba (Warlords of Sigrdrifa)
• Tokyo (Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club)
• Kōtō, Tokyo (Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club)
• Shibuya, Tokyo (Love Live! Superstar!!)
• Koganei, Tokyo (Dropout Idol Fruit Tart)
• Kōzu-shima, Tokyo (Love Live! Superstar!!)
• Hokuto, Yamanashi (Super Cub)
• Tajimi, Gifu (Let's Make a Mug Too)
• Shirakawa, Gifu (When They Cry - Higurashi)
• Hamamatsu, Shizuoka (Evangelion series)
• Hamamatsu, Shizuoka (Laid-Back Camp series)
• Kurayoshi, Tottori (Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!)
• Misasa, Tottori (Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!)
• Ube, Yamaguchi (Evangelion series)
• Ochi, Kōchi (BELLE)
• Ashikita, Kumamoto (Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater)
• Ishigaki, Okinawa (Asteroid in Love)
• Nanjō, Okinawa (The aquatope on white sand)

In addition, the Tokiwa-so Manga Museum in Toshima was also added to the list of noteworthy anime-related institutions. The museum is a reconstructed version of Tokiwa-sō, an apartment building famous for housing some of Japan's most renowned early manga artists, including Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy), Fujio Akatsuka (Tensai Bakabon), Fujiko Fujio (Doraemon) and Shōtarō Ishinomori (Kamen Rider). It was slated to open in March 2020, but due to coronavirus concerns, the opening was pushed back to July 7.

The results are based on a poll conducted on the Anime Tourism Association's website from June to September this year. This year marks the fourth time voting has taken place; it was skipped in 2020 due to concerns around the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

The Association revealed statistics from the poll indicating that the popularity of the project has declined since the last iteration, with the 2022 survey receiving roughly 40,000 responses compared to 80,000 for the 2020 version. In particular, interest declined steeply overseas; only around 9,000 respondents (22% overall) came from outside Japan this time compared to approximately 50,400 (63% overall) in 2020. The Association attributed the decline to COVID-19, which made it difficult to represent the project at various overseas anime conventions and events. International respondents, particularly from mainland China, also reported a heavy decline in "I have visited this location already" responses due to the ongoing travel restrictions.

The 88 anime pilgrimage concept is modeled on Shikoku's 88 Temple Pilgrimage, Japan's most famous Buddhist pilgrimage route. The Anime Tourism Association was founded in 2016 as a partnership between Kadokawa and various tourism and travel companies. Their aim is to attract tourists, from Japan as well as foreign countries, and bolster regional revitalization projects throughout Japan. Despite the 88 in the project's name, well over 100 locations are represented on the list.

The 2018 list was criticized online for its lack of transparency about the internal selection process and the unexplained gaps between what titles the fans voted for and what made it to the final list. Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, chairman of the Kadokawa Corporation and the Anime Tourism Association, said that in 2018 there was some difficulty in getting the rights cleared with all the Intellectual Property owners within a short space of time, but claimed that they were able to rectify that issue from 2019 onward.

Sources: Anime Tourism Association press release, press conference