In April of 2016, a devastating earthquake hit Kumamoto Prefecture. Since then, the region’s been working to rebuild and revive its economic fortunes. They’ve gotten a huge boost in the past few years thanks to a manga author and his iconic masterpiece.
49-year-old Oda Eichiro, the mangaka of ONE PIECE, is a native of Kumamoto City. In 2018, he started the ONE PIECE Kumamoto Revival Project to boost the area’s fortunes. The quake, a magnitude 7.0, killed 277 people, injured 2,809 others, and damaged critical infrastructure. It was the most devastating quake since the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami and remained so until last year’s Noto Peninsula Earthquake.
Oda’s idea was to leverage the power of anime tourism, in which fans typically flock to the original or “holy” site of a story to see its locations in real life. ONE PIECE is a fictional story in a fictional universe about a group of pirates in search of a mythical treasure. However, in Oda’s telling, protagonist Monkey D. Luffy and his pirate crew set down in “Hi no Kuni” – the historic name of the province in what is now Nagasaki, Saga, and Kumamoto Prefectures – and aid in the recovery efforts.
One of the project’s main attractions has been erecting a number of statues of the series’ characters in various locations around Kumamoto, starting with a Luffy statue in Kumamoto City’s Prefectural Office Promenade. The latest unveiled is a statue of Jinbe in Uto City’s Sumiyoshi Nature Park, which was installed in November 2022 (i.e., a month after Japan re-opened visa-free travel).
While underway for years, the move is really paying off for Kumamoto now that Japan is seeing a record number of incoming tourists. ONE PIECE is a worldwide phenomenon, consistently ranking in the top 10 most popular shonen manga and anime at home and abroad.
Not everyone in Japan (or the world) watches anime, of course. But enough do that it’s made Kumamoto a very popular destination indeed.
According to data from travel app NAVITIME, Kumamoto Prefecture now has 2.14 times more visitors than before the public health crisis. Visits to Uto City alone increased sevenfold since the Jinbe statue was installed. That makes Kumamoto the fastest-growing destination for inbound tourists to Japan relative to its 2019 numbers.
NAVITIME’s data shows that none of these locations are known as tourist areas in and of themselves. However, tourists are making the rounds from city to city in order to see each of the installed statues in turn.
More tourists doesn’t always equate to a good time, of course. Some anime tourist sites – such as Shirakawago and Kamakura – have struggled under the weight of their popularity, with travelers causing congestion on public transit and blocking busy roads.
However, for Kumamoto so far, the results seem largely positive. And honestly, anything that gets travelers to venture beyond the Big Three cities of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto and see something different in Japan is a net positive for both tourists and locals.
Learn more about the ONE PIECE Kumamoto Revival Project on its English-language website.
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