Anime Pilgrimages?

These days, I noticed that there is a trend for those anime-lovers who visits Japan, to go through long distances, unknown backalleys and places where only locals would actually go, in order to visit locations that had been animated into some of their favourite animes. I too am no stranger to this, having did a side trip to Kohata to visit Kyoani HQ and Studio when I was in Kyoto.

I know I did say I didn't want to post this photo up as it wasn't well taken, but can't be bothered now ^^. I almost died laughing from taking this photo, always waiting for the locals around to disappear before taking.

I do wonder at times why we're doing this, but came to realise that it was more of trying to relive the moment which was in the anime, to understand what our favourite characters were feeling, and to appreciate the efforts made by animators to draw actual buildings/scenery in animes, giving it a more realistic feel.

Since the other two travelers with me was too lazy to pose for this shot, I tried to do one which just had me in all 4 poses, using photoshop to fuse them together. However, I believe I'm too ugly that the com refused to budge whenever my friend tried to join the 4 pictures together, causing the com to hang. Oh well -.-"

Currently to my knowledge, I only know a few "pilgrimage" that can be done, mainly the Lucky☆Star Pilgrimage into Saitama Region (highlight of this being the Washinomiya Jinja), the LS Kyoani pilgrimage in Kyoto (the one I had already done), and the Byousoku 5cm location visits in Tokyo itself. I'm hoping to find more pilgrimages, and plan to make a full list of them. What I would really hope to find is the locations used for Kanon 2006, and I'm sure Clannad would have some too. Anyone knows where they are?

There's some videos I had found on youtube, that shows real-life locations used in AIR, Kanon and Haruhi (Notice they are all from Kyoani?), but the sad part is there's no specific location/address listed, so in the end would still need to search for those. I'll end off here, rushing out to attend the Asia Dive Expo 2008 (ADEX08, and no it's not related to Odex) now. Signing out.





Comparison videos.

P.S: I'm also going to be doing part of the LS Saitama and Byousoku 5cm pilgrimage this coming June, and thinking of doing one on Honey and Clover too, so stay tuned? ^^