We head north to the Akita city the place Chainsaw Man’s creator grew up and see the sights that impressed the look of Look Again.
Manga creator Tatsuki Fujimoto has had two serialized manga collection since going professional, and each of them, Chainsaw Man and Hearth Punch, are stuffed with bombastic motion. Fujimoto also can craft tales of tender drama, although, as confirmed by his one-shot manga Look Again and its anime film adaptation.
Because the title alludes to, Look Again is, some ways, a semi-autobiographical story. Its paired protagonists, Fujino and Kyomoto, are each aspiring teen manga artists who share a kanji character of their names with Fujimoto himself, and the story takes place in Nikaho, the agricultural Akita Prefecture city the place Fujimoto grew up.
▼ Trailer for Look Again
After studying, watching, and being deeply touched by Look Again, our Japanese-language reporter Saya Togashi determined to move north to Akita and go to this new anime holy floor. Arriving by prepare made her first cease within the metropolis Nikaho Station, on the JR Uetsu Important Line.
Although Nikaho Station itself doesn’t present up in Look Again, the constructing proudly sports activities posters for the work in its ready space, together with a displayed profile of Fujimoto. Contained in the station you may also get a map of the city, so Saya grabbed one earlier than she headed out to see the real-world areas that seem in Look Again.
Much like how Fujino’s and Kyomoto’s names are near, however not fairly, the identical as Fujimoto’s, Look Again’s “Bukkudo” bookstore, the place Fujino buys her sketchbooks, is modeled after Nikaho’s real-world Burindo store.
If you happen to’ve watched Look Again, Burindo is immediately recognizable, and even the buildings on both facet of it look identical to those within the anime.
▼ The stroll from the station to Burindo
Like a variety of budding manga artists dreaming of going professional, Fujino and Kyomoto enter the Shonen Soar manga contest for brand new creators. When the difficulty of the weekly anthology containing the announcement of the winners hits retailer cabinets, the pair make a journey to their native comfort retailer to verify and see in the event that they’ve gained. Inside Look Again, the shop is given a fictitious identify, but it surely’s clearly modeled after the real-world Nikaho Hirasawa department of 7-Eleven.
▼ Burindo to Nikaho Hirasawa 7-Eleven
It’s a snowy night time when Fujino and Kyomoto make their strategy to the shop, however should you’re there when the solar’s out, you’ll be able to see the close by mountains, although this bunch of clouds stored us from having the ability to see all the best way to Chokaisan, the most important mountain within the space.
Look Again additionally accommodates a number of scenes of Nikaho’s farmlands. These are a bit farther from the station, so that you would possibly wish to go by automotive, or a minimum of bicycle, to see them, however they’re stunning sufficient that it’s price the additional effort of securing some type of wheeled transportation.
For instance, there’s a scene the place Fujino and Kyomoto are on the prepare and go throughout an elevated bridge. The mannequin for that is Nikaho Ohashi, which is definitely for vehicles, and painted a shiny crimson that makes for an enthralling distinction with the encircling greenery.
▼ It’s a 24-minute stroll from the 7-Eleven to the bridge, should you’re feeling energetic, however remember that there’s no sidewalk on it.
In one other scene, the prepare passes by a crossing close to fields and forests, which relies on this one close to the Nikaho Hiramori department of comfort retailer Lawson.
▼ Approximate strolling route from the bridge to the above crossing
From there, it’s a little bit more durable to pinpoint actual spots which can be depicted in Look Again, however throughout you you’ll see surroundings that with out query impressed the Fujimoto in crafting its visible design.
Saya bought particularly emotional when she stumbled throughout a pathway operating between rice fields, reminding her of 1 Fujino and Kyomoto stroll collectively on.
Nikaho is a kind of quaint, quiet Japanese cities that may by some means make you’re feeling wistfully nostalgic even should you spent your individual childhood in a spot that’s rather more developed. Perhaps it has one thing to do with the way it feels directly huge, with broad open areas, and small, with not that many individuals or buildings, creating that particular mixture of familiarity and curiosity that’s such a giant a part of having spent all of your days in a single place, and inevitably beginning to surprise about what’s on the market past the borders of your life thus far. That’s a sense that just about any grownup can look again on with heat wistfulness, and should you’re now trying ahead to visiting Nikaho, the map that Saya picked up on the prepare station can also be obtainable on-line by means of town’s official web site right here.
Associated: Nikaho official web site
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[ Read in Japanese ]