THE JAPAN NEWS

 

An unmanned train station in Akita Prefecture is drawing fans of the popular anime movie “Kimi no Na wa” (your name.) for its purported resemblance to a station that appears in the film.

Maedaminami Station in Kitaakita, Akita Prefecture, is part of the Akita Nairiku Line, which is operated by local railway company Akita Nairiku Jukan Railway. It typically sees about a dozen passengers per day, so no staff are usually on duty, but fans of the movie are making “pilgrimages” to it from around the country.

The railway company began selling memorial admission tickets in late October. The company initially prepared 1,000 tickets but they sold out in just two weeks, so another 2,000 were quickly prepared.

A station that is said to resemble Maedaminami Station appears when one of the lead characters, high school girl Mitsuha, gets in a train to go to
Tokyo to meet the other lead character, the high school boy Taki.

 

The scenery in the movie is believed to be modeled primarily on locations in the Hida region of Gifu Prefecture. Production company officials said they could not say whether the station was modeled on Maedaminami.

But fans of the movie say there are close similarities, such as the rice paddies surrounding the station in a mountainous area, its waiting room, the look of the platform and the gentle curve of the single-track railway.

Akita Nairiku Jukan Railway received an increasing number of inquiries soon after the movie began screening in theaters, spurring it to use the film’s popularity to vitalize the railway line. It began selling memorial admission tickets on Oct. 27.

The tickets are three centimeters long and 5.75 centimeters wide, and made of hard paper. They have a drawing of a silhouette of the station and a train printed on them. The drawing is almost the same image as the station in the movie and seen from the same angle.

On the first day of their sales, a man came all the way from Saitama Prefecture to buy two tickets.

 

Fans have written many messages in a notebook placed in the real station’s waiting room. One says, “I was deeply moved to visit this station that many people have been talking about.” Another says, “I hope this boom will vitalize local train lines.”

An official of the railway company in charge of the project said, “We hope this station continues to be a favorite topic of conversation, thereby attracting more passengers.”

The memorial admission tickets are sold at three stations on the Akita Nairiku Line — Takanosu, Aniai and Kakunodate — as well as through the company’s online shop and some other locations.

A memorial admission ticket costs ¥170, with additional costs if delivery is needed. For telephone inquiries (Japanese only), call the railway company’s Jigyoka section at (0186) 82-3231.