So it's been a while since I last posted. Six months, actually. Lots has happened in between. Suffice to say I've been very happy for the past three months. Not only was I able to land a job with my Arts degree that wasn't in retail/fast food, but it was also an interesting job that actually paid really well. Landing a job before graduation, and actually managing to enjoy my graduation ceremony with family and friends was a godsend. I'll be starting to work next month, which gives me another five weeks to take it easy and do things like exercising and reading, the good stuff. Oh, and I also went to Japan, China and Korea as part of my great vacation. Soon I'll be heading to the South Island too.
So let's start with my Japan trip. I went there on December 1st and came back on January 4th. So a little over a month of vacation time. The entire trip, as a whole, was actually really nice. I managed to see most of the things I wanted, didn't plan anything (which meant the trip was full of surprises) and met some pretty interesting people. Most importantly I got to make a few 'pilgrimages' to some rather obscure places ('obscure' by normal people standards, I mean). Anime pilgrimage, or 聖地巡礼, is a form of tourism where you go to places where anime is set in. I believe this nerdy trend started with Lucky Star and has only gotten increasingly worse as time went on. Anyway...
I decided that my first pilgrimage was going to be at Numazu, Shizuoka prefecture. Love Live Sunshine is absolutely huge in Japan right now. Go to Akihabara, and Love Live is everywhere. I actually thought it would flop (since Love Live had some very loyal fans) but boy was I wrong. I guess the weird thing is that Love Live Sunshine is actually a decent show. Touching drama, a charismatic lead in the form of Chika, and some very pretty scenery all comes together to make a great show. I hated Hanayo and Nico in the original Love Live, but no one in Sunshine is hate-able aside from the occasional Dia tantrum. Anyway, what better way to pay homage to your favorite idol anime than to travel three hours to a remote Japanese fishing village?
I went on the 13th of December, was staying at Yokohama at the time. The journey from Yokohama station to Numazu was around one-and-a-half hours, and you get to see some very pretty scenery along the way. Atami is a well-known spa resort - I'll probably go there the next time I go to Japan.
Anime pilgrimages nowadays are very well tied in to local tourism nowadays. Back then, animators picked locations out of convenience. Nowadays, everyone from local businesses to the government are involved in making nerds like me spend money in some very obscure, rural places in Japan.
There is a temporary Love Live Sunshine cafe right outside of Numazu station. The setup is a little rough but it's got everything, including a fully stocked merchandise shop and your usual overpriced drinks. By the time I returned that evening, almost everything was sold-out except for Dia's handbag. Poor, poor Dia.
Say what you want, but locals have really embraced the idol thing. I had no idea Kanan and Yohane were so popular in Japan. I personally really like Ruby and Chika (I'm a sucker for baby-faces and genki girls generally) but I guess the Japanese have different tastes than me. And believe it or not, that's totally fine!
Numazu was much, much spread-out than I thought. In the anime, they often talk about how faraway the school is from Numazu, and how Numazu is really far away from Tokyo. In short, Numazu is a really rural faraway place. I actually wanted to walk all the way to Uranohoshi Girl's High School and trust me - do not make the same mistake I did.
Went into a random local cafe after 15 minutes of walking. Guess what: more Love Live! The owner seems to really like You. Her merchandise occupies an entire table and they don't seem to be up for sale. At this moment I felt like a weird outsider taking photos of these things, but that's okay.
A nice Japanese shrine. Reminded me of Kanda Myojin, which I would visit in a few days time.
Kept on walking until I was at a fish market a few kilometers south of Numazu station. This cafe appeared on episode five of Sunshine. Actually I had no idea this cafe was in the anime until a poster kindly reminded me to understand this is a landmark and that I had to walk in and spend money..
Here they serve a type of fried oysters called 'Fallen Angel's Pearls' or something like that. Basically a reference to Yohane. Pretty expensive for a few oysters but you get a nice plastic file on the side. There are three styles so I picked the one with Chika in it. The oysters were a tad greasy.
Waitress: "あなたはどれが欲しいですか？"
Me: "これです... 私は千歌ちゃんが好きです!! "
Waitress: "はい! 千歌ちゃんはかわいいです! "
My Japanese is terrible, by the way.
So earlier I said that you should never try to walk the whole way. I made that mistake after having walked about five kilometers and realized my pointer on Google Maps barely budged. It was cold, it was wet, there was no sunshine at all. So I waited for the local bus - which took about half an hour.
I got so impatient with waiting that I hopped on the next bus that came. Until I realized that it was the wrong bus and I was literally heading into the middle of a mountain. Got a bit scared and hopped off as soon as possible. Didn't forget to snap a quick photo, though. The scenery here was great.
At last, we're in Love Live Sunshine territory. It only took like three hours...which would've taken just 45 minutes if I had taken the bus instead. I got a good workout but I was exhausted. Then again, I was a devoted pilgrim and no amount of pain could prevent me from seeing the thing for real.
No words can describe how goddamn happy I was to see Awashima Island. All that hard work really paid off and finally I can ride the infamous Love Live boat to an aquarium I barely know anything about. It was actually a bit anti-climatic since I just wanted a place to sit down and rest.
Turns out the best way to advertise yourself nowadays (especially to nerds) is to make a cute anime mascot of your business. The aquarium has one, and as I shall soon learn, a lot of random places in Japan has anime mascots. Railways, high schools, other aquariums...the list goes on and on and on.
Turns out I wasn't alone, after all. There was a whole flock of Japanese otaku who came here as well, on this rainy day, on this pilgrimage. I also met two really friendly Argentinians who were heading towards the same place. Ended up visiting Akihabara with them as well but that's a story for another day. Actually, so is this blog post since I'll be writing up part two tomorrow.
