English travel guides · Anime pilgrimage and beyond

Anime Routes Japan

Follow Anime. Discover More of Japan.

Travel to Japan’s anime settings, creators’ hometowns and official local projects. Choose a route you can manage with the time and transport you have, then follow it into the food and scenery nearby.

Find a Work
Explore by Destination

23 works, one search

Find a Work

Type a title in English, Japanese or Chinese, or pick a region. Each work appears once, with the languages its guide can be read in.

All 23 works, A–Z

Where to start

Featured Routes

Six guides to start with: each sets out a full day or two, and each can be read on this site in English, Traditional Chinese and Korean.

Every work is in the search above and on the Anime page.

Choose a region

Explore by Destination

Already know where you are going? Start with a region and work outward from there.

Tokyo

The arrival point, and a base for day trips in every direction.

2 guides in Tokyo

Kanto

Mountain passes, coastal towns, and hot springs close to the capital.

5 guides in Kanto

Chubu

The Japanese Alps, Mt. Fuji, and the lakes and valleys around them.

5 guides in Chubu

Kansai

Kyoto, Osaka and Nara, plus the ports and mountains just beyond them.

3 guides in Kansai

Chugoku

Sand dunes, the Seto Inland Sea, and quiet castle towns.

2 guides in Chugoku

Shikoku

Pilgrimage trails, river gorges, and the slowest pace in the country.

1 guide in Shikoku

Kyushu

Volcanoes, hot spring towns, and a kitchen all of its own.

3 guides in Kyushu

Hokkaido

Snow, seafood, and wide-open road-trip country.

1 guide in Hokkaido

Tohoku

Deep winters, festival towns, and coastlines few visitors reach.

1 guide in Tohoku

Each of these nine regions now has at least one published guide. The full list, with what each guide covers, is on the Destinations page.

Before you go

Plan Your Anime Trip

Six published routes, each linked to the itinerary section inside its guide. Getting there, trains and buses, driving, where to stay, what to eat and local manners are written into those guides, so the planning sits beside the places it applies to.

A town walk from the station

Conan Street and a museum in a small Tottori town. Decide first which deadline governs your day: the last admission or the last bus. See the itinerary.

A day along the coast

A level crossing, a seaside railway and two temple towns. Decide first whether you are doing the crossing before or after the sightseeing. See the itinerary.

Statues scattered across a prefecture

Ten figures across nine municipalities in Kumamoto. Decide first which of them you actually want to stand in front of. See the itinerary.

An overnight trip that uses a local bus

Hita, where the statues are up the valley and the bus runs three to five times a day. Decide first which day of the week you are going. See the itinerary.

An afternoon in a city district

Shimokitazawa on foot, and a basement show if you want one. Decide first whether you are buying a ticket for a particular night. See the itinerary.

A day on a mountain

Mount Takao and the city below it. Decide first how you are coming down: the cable car and the chair lift stop halfway, at different times. See the itinerary.

Our approach

Why Anime Routes Japan?

Anime may be the reason you arrive. Japan should be the reason you stay.

We start where the scene was drawn — a station platform, a stretch of coast, a street corner — and then keep going. Each guide continues into the food, the hot springs, the museums, the markets, the mountains, and the small towns that surround it, so a single location becomes a trip worth taking.

These places are someone’s home town, not a theme park. Our guides are written to help you travel well: getting there without guesswork, spending your money locally, and leaving every location the way you found it.

From the site

Latest Guides

New route guides, destination notes, and travel tips, listed here as they are published.

More guides are on the way. Follow along as new routes are published.

Background photograph: Mount Fuji seen from Lake Motosu, Yamanashi, taken on 13 December 2014. Photo: Alpsdake · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source file · resized and re-compressed for the web, offered under the same licence.