Japan is an extremely successful brand. It's also a tightly controlled one. The government wants lots of foreigners to visit its 2020 Tokyo Olympics, buy its Abenomics, experience the unmatched beauty of its four unique seasons and overlook its urban blight while searching for the few heritage sites that remain unblemished.

Contents Tourism in Japan, by Philip Seaton, Takayoshi Yamamura, Akiko Sugawa-Shimada and Kyungjae Jang.326 pagesCAMBRIA PRESS, Nonfiction.

Now, according to a new book by academics from the universities of Hokkaido and Yokohama, Japan fans can add virtual reality encounters with anime characters to their officially sanctioned itineraries.