The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has recently come up with a smartphone application to guide tourists to Tokyo locations featured in TV dramas, movies and animations, in both English and Japanese.
The Tokyo Location Guide, which is free to download on Apple Inc.'s App Store and Google Play, features about 140 shooting spots used in around 80 productions including the Disney animation "Big Hero 6" and the Hollywood film "Wolverine," as well as popular Japanese productions.
For "Big Hero 6" (titled "Baymax" in Japan), it introduces the bells in the precincts of Hanazono Shrine in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward as the motif of the face of Baymax.
"We want to attract tourists not only in the nation, but also from abroad," said Toshihiro Kamiya, an official of the metropolitan government's Bureau of Industrial and Labor Affairs, adding that more locations are planned to be added in the near future.
Japanese TV dramas account for the bulk of the locations used by the app, including a bank featured in the 2013 series "Hanzawa Naoki" — whose titular character's trademark phrase became one of Japan's top buzzwords that year — and an area used in "Amachan," another hit that year.
The app uses GPS to recommend routes and information on major locations is also provided in Chinese and Korean.
