Welcome to Part 2 of my series on Japanese destinations outside of Tokyo, Japan and the amazing anime that happen there! Though the bigger than life city of Tokyo might seem like the most anime-est of locations, and it’s not surprising this giant city was the main location for so many anime and movies, but it’s not the only super sized city in Japan. There are a plethora of other places in Japan that anime series take place, and the second largest city of Japan is no exception. This Jumbo sized port town has just as many reasons for anime characters to flock there as Tokyo, yet it definitely has a personality all it’s own. We’ve already visited the snowy Northern island of Hokkaido and we are not yet to the sunny tropical islands of Okinawa, but in between on the Southern shores of Tokyo Bay there is a city that is just full of anime. So let’s continue this four part blog series highlighting wonderful places outside of Tokyo, Japan and the thrilling, heart warming, and fun anime that happen there.
Yokohama
South of Tokyo there is another huge city called Yokohama. Though Kyoto might be the historic center of Japan and Tokyo might be the cultural hub of the country, it’s Yokohama that’s the international center of Japan. Starting out as a sleepy fishing village, this city quickly grew as one of the first ports open to international trade when Japan ended its centuries long era of seclusion in the mid 1800’s. Being a port town, Yokohama is known for it’s greater diversity of people, it’s openness toward international ideas, trade, and innovations, and also at times some less than legal imports. There’s a reason why anime that take place in Yokohama often seem to have mobsters and a dark urban underbelly mixed into the story. Likewise it’s because of this history of openness and friendliness to outsiders that Yokohama’s residents are so known for that inspires the friendly and open anime characters that come from Yokohama. Like the cheerful and kind witch Makoto from the anime Flying Witch.
Hamatora
Much like the anime Bungo Stray Dogs which also takes place in Yokohama, the anime Hamatora is about a group of super powered problem solvers that use their abilities to help locals when the police can’t handle a certain case. They also have quite a few tussles with the local mobsters who have their own band of super powered tough guys. Their troubleshooter agency is named Hamatora, and the leader of this problem solver agency is a prodigy of using special abilities named Nice (in this anime the super powers are called Minimum Miracles and people that use these abilities are called Minimum Holders). The story of this anime starts out a little slow, but quickly speeds up toward the middle of the series. Over the course of a few episodic cases, a larger mystery starts to unfold revealing a serial killer that has been murdering Minimum Holders to use their body parts to give non Minimum Holders special abilities too.
Anime Hanabi 