Summary
Quick Links
The Anime Tourism Association released this year’s list of “Anime Pilgrimage Sites People Should Visit”, making the total number of such identified sites over 120 from over 100 different anime titles and franchises. The 2025 list was released on January 2024, adding locations from 15 new titles, includingNatsume’s Book of Friends,Girls Band Cry,Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night,Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!and eventhe currently showingThe Colours Withinfilm. The list has been released by the Association each year since 2018, and is available to view on their website.
The Anime Tourism Association will also be hosting a press conference on February 13 at 14:00 JST (Japan Standard Time) for their Anime Pilgrimage Sites 88 program on their official YouTube channel.
What’s the Anime Tourism Association?
Facilitating Contents Tourism
The Anime Tourism Association is a partnership formed in September 2016 by Kadokawa alongside various key members of Japan’s anime and travel industries, the purpose of which is the promotion of tourism motivated by the cultural exports of anime and manga. The ATA is based in Fujimi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, and its current president isthe legendary mecha animedesigner Shoji Kawamori, who succeeded Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino in the role in October 2024. The Association aims to promote what is referred to as “content tourism”, which describes tourism involving places that are the setting of works of various forms of art, such as literature, anime and manga.
One of the ways they do this is through the annual “88 Japanese Anime Spots”, also known as “Japanese Anime Holy Sites”, which they have published since 2018. The significance of the number 88 is that it refers to the 88 temples visited bythe legendary Buddhist monkKūkai (27 July 774 – 22 April 835) during his Shikoku Pilgrimage. The spots are chosen through a selection process that involves a poll of Japanese and international anime fans, with a board of directors to make a judgment on the results.
The 2025 Anime Holy Sites
Classic Titles and Recent Hits Share the Spotlight
The 2025 88 Anime Holy Sites are a mixed bag of places from classic shows and those from more recent titles, includingJellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night (2024),My Deer Friend Nokotan (2024),SHOSHIMIN: How to become Ordinary (2024),A Certain Scientific Railgun (2009),Digimon Adventure (1999),Hanasaku Iroha (2011),Hyouka (2012)and more. The full list can be found in the table below. The titles with asterisks are new additions.
5 Centimeters per Second
“SHIROBAKO” the Movie
GAMERA -Rebirth-
Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki
Aichi prefecture
Gegege no Kitaro
Sakaiminato City
If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die
Dragon and the Freckled Princess
Ultraman Series (Tetsuo Kinjo Museum)
Haebaru Town
The official 88 Holy Sites lists of previous years can be found on theofficial website.
