Kitaro Town [Sakaiminato]
Sakaiminato city in Tottori prefecture has been famous for Kitato town. It’s where Shigeru Muzuki, or the author of “Gegegeno Kitaro” is from.
According to SmaStation on TV Asahi, Sakaiminato is nowadays one of the very popular tourist spots in Japan.
Especially this year, the novel “Gegege no nyobo” written by his wife was featured as TV drama and it became even more popular.
There are as many as 139 bronze statues of characters from “Gegege no Kitaro” along the Mizuki Shigeru road and Kitaro-themed confectionery or bread are available.
The name of the airport was even changed from Yonago airport to Yonago Kitaro airport in Apr. 2010. The train that runs from Yonago to Sakaiminato is of course Kitaro-themed.
Sakaiminato started to boost the development of the city with Kitaro in 1993. The number of tourists was 20,000 people at the first year and this year it went over 1 million people.
Some interesting places to be checked out at Sakaiminato:
- -Mizuki Shigeru kinenkan (memorial hall)
- -Gegege no youkai rakuen (Gegege specter paradise)
- -Youkai Jinja (specter shrine)
As someone commented in the video, it’s hard to live in the city if one doesn’t like Kitaro. But I think it’s interesting anime characters can even make the small local town very famous like this.
Speaking of Kitaro, there’s Kitarojaya tea salon (http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1326/A132601/13036786/) in Tokyo, too.
There’s also an event called “Gegegeten” (Gegege Exhibition) available this summer in Tokyo and Osaka if you are interested.
Contributor Bio: Kirin is a Japanese woman spending her life so far somewhere around Tokyo. She now works from home and is also spreading Japanese kawaii culture and etc. through her popular blog, Tokyo Kawaii,etc.
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