Tokyo City Produces Anime to Promote Foreign Tourism

posted on 2009-12-20 14:38 EST

50-million-yen project, aimed at anime fans, to stream in 8 languages next spring

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The City of Tokyo has begun production on an anime to promote the city's sights to young foreign tourists interested in Japanese animation. The anime will debut online in eight languages next spring. A national government subsidy is paying for the production budget of about 50 million yen (about US$550,000).

The Tokyo Tourism Info website has been hosting simple anime shorts, each roughly five minutes in length, for 20 sightseeing locations since 2001. However, these shorts are being updated in the new anime project. The new anime will run 10 minutes long and target foreign anime fans in their 20s and 30s.

According to a city survey, a historic high of 534,000 foreign tourists visited Tokyo last year. 47% used the Internet to get sightseeing information, and 47% used a guidebook.

Source: Tokyo Shimbun