Seichi junrei
Japanese pop-culture tourist attraction / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Seichi junrei (聖地巡礼, lit. 'pilgrimage to sacred places') is a Japanese buzzword and internet slang term describing a form of pop-culture tourism or film tourism where fans of anime subculture-related media make visits to real-world locations featured as settings, backgrounds, or general inspiration for their favorite series. The "Seichi" prefix is often included in order to make a distinction between this secular fan behavior and religiously-significant Japanese Buddhist or Shinto Junrei (巡礼).
Locations for secular seichi can encompass the aforementioned backgrounds and settings, inspiration for the name of a character, or a place that happens to share a name with a character or series. Locations that have strong memories for all kinds of fans, such as sports stadiums, have also sometimes been figuratively called seichi.[1] The act of touring these sites like a pilgrim came to be called junrei, with intended contrast to historic junrei.[1]
Tourism to locations featured in manga, dramas, games, and anime is also often called contents tourism. The term seichi junrei-sha is used to describe enthusiasts who engage with the practice. Additional terms such as rokechi-meguri (ロケ地巡り, lit. 'location tour') and butai tanbou (舞台探訪, lit. 'stage exporation') are closely tied or synonymous to seichi junrei. Butai tanbou usually describes the more specific practice of superimposing fan photography to the camera angles featured in the related content.[2]
Japan's Cabinet Office also noted that animation and manga works originating from and set in Japan have gained many fans outside of Japan as "Cool Japan" content. Using the language of seichi junrei – along with anime tourism and contents tourism – Japan's central government, local chambers of commerce, business associations, and private interest groups have promoted the practice as a measure to increase the number of tourists visiting Japan, to attract visitors from seichi to the surrounding conventional regional tourist resources, and to stimulate local consumption spending.[3]