Anime Pilgrimage / Scene Hunting in Johana, Toyama

Good Morning Internet,

For those of you who are not familiar with Anime Pilgrimage might not know about this town. It is known as the town of shrines, and the setting of two great slice-of-life anime. Sakura Quest is one of them. It is also the home of P. A. Works animation studio. Yes, this is Johana Town in Toyama Prefecture

Sakura Quest is an anime about a recent college graduate, Yoshino Koharu,  who was desperate to leave her small town/village. However, She was not lucky enough to land any jobs in Tokyo. One day She accepted a part-time job to be a queen in a small rural town, Manoyama. The employer thought She’s an actress. She thought it was just an easy part-time job. One thing and another she was tasked to rejuvenate the tourism in the small town. With no other choices, Koharu reluctantly agreed to take the job.

Sakura Quest showed the harsh reality of rural Japan. Rural areas and even small towns are dying as the population in those areas get older. The younger generation prefers living in a city, so they usually left their hometown after finishing secondary school. There is not much to do in the rural area and nothing to be promoted. That is why there are a lot of dying town in Japan

Then what are you doing here?

There are three main reasons why I put this unknown town on my itinerary. First, it is a quiet town with decent scenery. Second, it is the home of P. A. Works animation studio. Third, it is the setting for Sakura Quest. The perfect town for scene hunting

Anime Pilgrimage to Johana

Although this town is relatively unknown to any tourist, the town is somewhat famous for being the setting of True Tears and Sakura Quest. Both anime were produced by P. A. Works, which also headquartered here. In my opinion, P. A. Works is one of the best studios to create slice-of-life/drama/office anime.

To get here, you can take the shinkansen or other local or rapid trains to Takaoka City first. Takaoka City is a very popular city in the anime pilgrimage/scene hunting world. It is the hometown of Fujiko F. Fujio (the creator of Doraemon) and the setting for plenty of old and modern anime. It is also fairly popular among train enthusiasts because of its tram and its beautiful train line in JR West, the Himi Line (which terminates at Himi City, the hometown of Fujiko A. Fujio the creators of Ninja Hattori). 

Once you get to Takaoka Station, find the red KiHa 40 train going southbound. That’s Johana Line train (if you take the train that is going northbound, that’s Himi Line). There is one train to Johana every hour, so please plan the trip carefully. Once you reached Johana station, there are several options for sightseeing. You can go to the tourist center and rent a bicycle there (around 700 yen for a whole day), or take the cute local bus. Once you get to Sakuragaike Lake, that is where the journey starts.

This page uses images from the anime for educational purposes only. It is not intended for commercial use (no ads in this page) and / or to infringe any copyright from the original works and owners

Original Visit Date: March 2019