Saitama: Anime Land

Nopy — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:00:22 +0000

Many anime are set in real places with scenes drawn straight from photographs of actual streets, giving a more realistic feel to the anime. This practice, however, seems to have put the prefecture of Saitama in the spotlight. Riding on the success of the anime series “Lucky Star”, Saitama has drawn many tourists wanting to see the town where the characters of Lucky Star reside. Of course, with the airing of Lucky Star long over, one would expect tourism in the area to fall back down, but the residents of Saitama have found a way to draw anime fans (and their wallets) back into the area.

So lets say you were a die-hard Lucky Star fan and you went to Saitama to see the sights. You visit the shrine where Tsukasa and Kagami work in the anime and buy some merchandise, but you feel that something is missing. What is it you ask? The Lucky Star girls of course. This problem may soon be solved as the prefecture may change their school uniforms to match those in the anime. No doubt this would bring in another influx of anime fans and boost tourism in the area once again. One has to wonder if the girls that actually have to wear the uniforms will have any objections to crazed otaku around every corner asking them for a picture. This just goes to show that you never know what the Japanese will make their schoolgirls do for some easy money. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll see an entire school perform the Lucky Star dance.

Besides the obvious Lucky Star spots, the “Anime Land” Engrish website also lists other attractions in the area that may be of interest to anime fans (especially those of Crayon Shin-chan and My Neighbour Totoro).

Source: ANN

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Saitama: Anime Land