Source: @Shunwang Animation

Here is the fifth issue of the Court of Words and Leaves, which has dragged on for more than half a month, and the article I found when I was writing about the Holy Land Tour. As we all know, Japan's population has plummeted, a large number of remote towns are facing the crisis of ghost towns, coupled with the economic recession, it is simply a decaying atmosphere, at this time, the hand of salvation of the house has finally reached out to the town on the verge of collapse, and the holy land tour has greatly driven the economy of these inconvenient areas, let's take a small hotel in Chiba Prefecture as an example to take a look~

Nationally, the business situation of "small town liquor stores" is quite unoptimistic, although this phenomenon is not new. If you search the website of the National Tax Service, you will find an article entitled "Survey on the Conversion and Disposal of Small and Medium-sized Liquor Dealers". Even if the National Tax Service has to pay so much attention to the phenomenon of changing jobs and abandoning businesses, it seems that the situation is already quite serious.

Therefore, this time, we decided to use materials for this type of sake shop. When I contacted Mr. Kaneko Yan, the third-generation successor of the "Sedan Husband Shoten" in Nagaruyama City, Chiba Prefecture, whom I had met from a previous event, I quickly received a positive answer. I went to the local area in high spirits, and found that it had become a "holy place".

It is still open despite the inconvenience of buses running once an hour

From Tokyo's Akihabara, it takes only 30 minutes by limited express train to Nariyama Goshawk Forest Station. There is a large shopping mall to the south of the station, and a new residential street behind it. On the other hand, from the opposite side of the unorganized station, it takes about 10 minutes by taxi to the old Nagayama street. The "Sedan Husband Shops" are quietly open along the Edogawa River.

After checking the timetable at a nearby bus stop, we found that there were only buses that run once an hour in the morning, except for the morning rush hour to and from school. No matter which station you walk to, it's far away, so it's an inconvenient place to get around. Anyway, while it was still dark, we were going to take a picture of the exterior of the shop, and it happened that the man who showed his face from the store made a V gesture. This is a sake shop with good style and good lighting, and the owner is Mr. Kaneko.

"In any case, you can't do it without breaking the preconceived notions of the liquor store. It's not easy to get around, so it's not easy to expand your store. Most of the shops in the neighborhood have closed down. Even if they are still open, most of them have been converted into convenience stores...... In order to maintain our business, we have set up vending machines in the vicinity."

――I often hear from people at sake breweries that the main source of income comes from parking lots.

"That's true. Since the second half of the 80s, the business situation of the sake brewery has been quite serious. With the advent of pù, a low-cost mass merchandiser, the way alcohol is sold has fundamentally changed. Nowadays, when you think of liquor stores, you basically think of salesmen. In other words, we go to visit customers to get orders. On the other hand, prices and products have become more diverse, and customers can buy products just by going to the store, which is the advantage of the mass merchandiser pù."

Mr. Kaneko has only been helping out at the family's shop pù since March last year. Before that, it was an office worker who went to work in the company.

"For the first 10 years or so, I worked as a manager at a restaurant owned by a company, and then I was transferred to the system development department. We create the company's website and catalog, and use the POP system in the store. Thanks to this job, I now make my own website and flyers. There are also original products sold on the Internet, and I also made that website myself."

Anime lovers who came out of nowhere

The reason for the gradual elimination of liquor stores in the town was somewhat influenced by the relaxation policies such as the liberalization of the liquor sales system in 2003. However, there are also suggestions that it is necessary to stop excessively cheap sales competition centered on industry groups, and there has been a recent trend of "institutional strengthening".

Nevertheless, the system formed by long-term economic and social trends will not change lightly. Whatever the conclusion reached in the Diet, it will not survive by "relying on politics" alone.

"So, I thought of all sorts of ways to do it, and on that day, different customers came to the store one after another."

――A guest who is different from ordinary guests?

"Well, I feel like I'm in Akihabara. I greeted those unusual guests and found out that they were anime lovers. It is said that I came to visit the place where it appeared as a background for the anime."

Could it be that this is the legendary "pilgrimage to the Holy Land"?

For those of you who don't know this, the term "holy place" here is not a religious term. The term "Holy Land" refers to the locations that appear in the background of the anime, while the "Holy Land Tour" refers to the visits of fans to these mentioned places.

The reason for the attraction of pilgrims to the sedan chair shop was the broadcast of an anime "Ordinary High School Girls Become Local Idols", which tells the story of a group of two female high school students who start a local idol event in order to make the town prosperous. The background of the anime is the overhead town "Rukawa", and its prototype is the city of Ruyama. Mr. Kaneko didn't know anything about it at the time, but he put up a poster for the recruitment of firefighters based on anime characters in the store.

"After I put it up, I heard that this is a legendary poster. I asked, "What do you mean by legend?" The guest told me that the poster was very popular on Twitter."

Mr. Kaneko hurriedly registered a Twitter account for the "Third Generation of the Sedan Husband Shop", and in short, he followed the account of the person who told me about the Holy Land Pilgrimage.

"I was thinking about saying something, but I didn't have a clue. I didn't expect that after that, more and more people gradually paid attention to me. Thinking about what was going on, I saw that the people who followed me posted tweets like "The sedan chair shop has an account", and it was slowly retweeted and spread. The number of retweets is very disturbing, and it is really very powerful."

There are even "pilgrim fans" among the pilgrims!?

It was also my negligence, and I contacted the "Sedan Driver Shop" to collect materials without knowing about it. Wasn't the one who smiled at the camera and made a V-sign also a pilgrimager, and realized this for the first time at the time?

The visit coincided with May 4th, which was a day of continuous holidays. The weather was nice, and it was a good day for the pilgrimage. During the conversation, guests came to visit one after another. In the few hours I was in the store, I roughly estimated that there were about 10 people.

Among them, Mr. Kaneko specially introduced me to me, "This customer made a T-shirt at his own expense and brought it to me." A white T-shirt decorated with the words "Jerusalem artichoke of the Kosanae family" written in front of the store.

In "Ordinary High School Girls Want to Be Local Idols", the girl who is the main character appears in a white T-shirt with a local trade name written on it. "That's why I imitated it and made a T-shirt like this." So said the man who came to the pilgrimage.

"If you wear this T-shirt, you will feel more familiar and the number of customers will increase."

I see, the T-shirt contains the ...... of welcoming pilgrims.

By the way, "Kosanae" is the name of Mr. Kaneko's mother (71 years old), and her pickled Jerusalem artichoke made by her zuò is very popular among pilgrims as a specialty of Nagamiyama. If you look closely, you'll see that there are pilgrims chatting happily with "Kosanae" standing behind the cash register. "Little Sanae" also enjoyed talking to their grandchildren.

The tables in the store are decorated with goods such as fans. Anyone can hold it and enjoy it. All of these were brought by the pilgrims, and none of them were bought by Mr. Gold. There are also pilgrims who come from afar to see these neighborhoods. Open the contact book, which is filled with loving comments from pilgrims.

So I bought the book "N Dimension Creation Sightseeing Anime Tour Holy Sites/Tourist Catalog/Possibilities of Tourism Sociology" and researched it again, and it seems that the first pilgrim to visit the holy land is called a "pioneer". The pioneers decided the rules of the parade, and the self-made parade guide will be posted online to guide fans who will go to the site in the future. In this way, their actions will increase the number of pilgrims and achieve "secondary production".

The pilgrims who come with T-shirts are similar to the so-called pioneers. He guides the other pilgrims on the bus, just like a tour guide for a travel agency. They knew a lot about the "Holy Land", and he told me a lot about it when I was talking to Mr. Kaneko. Listening to the conversation between the two of us, the Pioneer is a bit like a professional advisor who comes to this town.

The most important thing is "not greedy"

If there is no communication between people, there will be no "holy place".

I had the rare opportunity to ask him, who was a pioneer, "Why do you know so much?" To such a question, it was surprising that he actually replied, "Actually, I don't know much about anime and the like."

- Eh, really?

"I prefer to visit sacred places and talk to passionate fans more than to be an anime lover."

――In other words, is it a "fan of anime fans"?

"That's right. Because people talk to me with enthusiasm, they will fall in love with this place before you know it."

He also said that anime lovers will be interested in Cheng dù longer than fans of movies and Taiga dramas. While the popularity of large-scale events is high, they are quickly forgotten. Local idols who are slowly expanding their popularity can easily gather a regular group of die-hard fans who come to this town to contribute.

"What matters is the expressive power of the work. That's intimately linked to staying power. In other words, you can't be too greedy in any case. Thinking that I want to revive the town's economy with animation, will customers come if we do that? Such an urgent thought is not a no-go. It's not always possible to sell products with character tags on ubiquitous products. A little bit of room for profit is enough, because fans will naturally be attracted to it."

The idea of "just making your own money" is absolutely not acceptable

We want to create the future of the town together with our fans

Mr. Kaneko's lunch is eaten at the store, and he often eats the leftovers of the previous day while watching the store. He has been obsessed with tofu lately and eats it differently every day. Lunch on this day is also vegetarian fried tofu with leeks and trash fish. "Actually, it tastes better if you add garlic, but I have to wait for it because I have to serve customers, so I can't help but eat it (laughs)."

The purpose of the parade is not to "spend". Rather, they are disgusted by ways of thinking that are governed by economic principles. As soon as you feel the atmosphere of "as long as you have money to make", the enthusiasm of the fans will immediately cool.

The pilgrims repeatedly walk around the place where the story is set and interact with the people there, and some become fans of the owner or proprietress of the shop. The ultimate goal of the festival is to "communicate with each other" and to "contribute to the circulation of society, even if it is small." Regardless of the scale, there would never have been a "holy place" without communication.

The author of the aforementioned book, Ken Okamoto, has the following article.

In the anime tour, the same model as entertaining ordinary tourists does not work. The locals learn from the visitors and work with them to create a new town. There are also examples of pilgrims participating as volunteers in the planning and operation of local events. The interaction between the local residents and the pilgrims led to the popularity of the "Holy Land".

Mr. Kaneko, the third-generation heir of the sedan chair shop, said the same.

"Therefore, we don't pay much attention to the turnover of the store. Of course, I'm glad to be able to buy something in the store, and until then, the most important thing is to get the whole economy of the town in motion. First of all, I would like to increase the number of people who want to go to Narayama, but it doesn't mean that the number of customers who come to our store will increase. It is not good for only our family to be developed, and the entire Liushan City must be revitalized. Isn't it nice for everyone to do their best to do that?"