Multilayered Sense of Place in Tourism

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how sense of place becomes multilayered through the performance of the individuals in Anime tourism. In a globalized world, discussion of performance focused on the meaning of local context. Especially, such performance in tourism is not only as a representation of individual tourists, role as generation of symbolic meaning of place and publicity. Changes of such performance provide changing role of the symbol and one example is the recognition of authenticity. Rather than recognized being fixed, authenticity becomes to be recognized as a continual process. This paper focuses on such changes in the role of authenticity as basis for diversifying meaning of place. Specifically, this paper discusses the diversification of place with the concept of 'authentication'. Concept of authentication emphasizes not only just classify but also emphasizes the formation of authenticity in the dynamic interaction of political, social and economic context. One example of such features appeared significantly is Anime tourism. First, this paper reviews on formation of place by performance, diversification of sense of place and film induced tourism. Then, discuss the features of Anime tourism and TV anime "Kamisama Hajimemashita (神様はじめました, Kamisama Kiss in English)" which this paper analyze. Finally, this paper discuss how sense of place become multi-layered by analyzing the case of the Kawagoe city which location of Anime "Kamisama Hajimemashita".