When we think of places to visit in Japan for anime, Tokyo often comes on top of the list. With various anime pilgrimage sites, as well as the “Holy Land” of anime itself, Akihabara, Tokyo would always be a must-visit for any anime fan going to Japan. However, because of all of this, people tend to overlook another anime hot spot, which is Osaka. The city boasts tons of anime events, as well as Den Den Town. It’s also home to Universal Studios Japan, which also often features anime attractions.

These attractions are part of the theme park’s “Cool Japan” events. But now, it seems that the city itself will be having a separate theme park for all of these “Cool Japan” attractions. Osaka-based entertainment company, Yoshimoto Kogyo, is teaming up with 13 other companies to create the tentatively named “Cool Japan Park Osaka”. This is in cooperation with the Japanese government, and they’ll be using public, as well as private funds.

And it won’t just showcase anime and manga, but other Japanese cultural aspects like Kabuki and Rakugou. The park will include three different theatres of different sizes, and they will open in February 2019. These theatres will have seats ranging from 300 seats to 1,144 seats. The organizers hope to bring around 500,000 tourists every year with the attraction. Of course, that number includes both local and foreign guests.

The Japanese government fully supports the Cool Japan Program, which aims at promoting Japanese culture. However, this just doesn’t pertain to anime, manga, and video games, but all sorts of Japanese media. In fact, just last year, they allotted 45.9 billion yen just for the program.

Source: Spoinichi Annex