'An Indescribable Chemistry': Fandom and Pilgrimage in Contemporary Japan

For centuries, the people of Japan have paid visits to holy sites across the country, ostensibly in the name of religious devotion; however, in the last few decades, a new type of ‘pilgrimage’ has arisen, in which fans of... [ view full abstract ]

For centuries, the people of Japan have paid visits to holy sites across the country, ostensibly in the name of religious devotion; however, in the last few decades, a new type of ‘pilgrimage’ has arisen, in which fans of serialized comics (manga) and/or animated media (anime) travel to sites that either appear in or are otherwise related to these works. Once thought to be a practice limited only to die-hard fans (otaku), the Japanese government has projected that it will become a 900 trillion yen industry by the year 2020 and can no longer be ignored. My senior thesis research focuses on uncovering the psychological and sociocultural motivations that underlie these ‘pilgrimages’ through the use of a hybrid conceptual framework that combines anthropological theories of pilgrimage as a historical and religious practice with theories of secular tourism and fan cultures in the postmodern era. I provide an analysis of the ‘holy’ sites and their structures in order to discuss how ‘fiction’ and ‘reality’ intermingle and overlap, as well as of the related guidebooks, photo collections, and other fan-published unofficial (doujin) media to show the ways in which fans quantify and qualify their own journeys and disseminate that information to others. Ultimately, I hope to demonstrate the complex and historically-based nature of the fan pilgrimage as both a secular and spiritual experience and discuss the ways in which it enhances and legitimizes the devotion of the ‘fan cults’ that surround contemporary popular media in Japan.