ROM-COM. In anime terms, it’s a popular genre characterized by awkward misunderstandings, passionate confessions and all manner of relationship geometries. In travel terms, it’s an unconventional transatlantic flight from Rome, Italy to Coleman, Texas. Both are more related than you might think, since two recent titles have taken love and laughs to the extreme(s). Last year’s Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable! puts a city boy up to his neck in snow and cute classmates in the north, while this year’s OKITSURA: Fell in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Know What She's Saying does the same with seawater and culture shock in the south — a parallel that was even recognized by the former’s creator . It begs the question… can we fill the Japan-sized gap in-between with other region-centric rom-coms? Get ready to follow your heart, because it’s about to go on a 1,400-mile journey! Let’s start from the top. As the setting for multiple seasons of Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You and Wagnaria!! , along with other genre big-hitters like ERASED , Silver Spoon and Golden Kamuy , Hokkaido is hardly a foreign land for anime fans. There’s a proven charm to watching bundled-up characters finding physical and emotional warmth in a frigid environment, and the new-generation Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable! bares its regional heart through visits to the Kitami Winter Festival, skiing slopes, a smelt fishing spot and Higashimokoto Shibazakura Park. Getting to the next stop requires taking multiple trains through Kitami, Sapporo and Hakodate on our way to Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture. Navigation from there is easy, though, since Uzaki often pops up around Sendai Station in Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out! and is seriously hard to miss. Tohoku University, around which much of the raucous antics between Uzaki and her unwitting senpai occurs, is otherwise just a short walk away. A two-hour bullet train from there gets you to Tokyo and its surrounding prefectures, where most of the anime set in Japan naturally take place. Not only is Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend at the top of this zone in Saitama, but its tale of figuring out love and reaching creative peaks begins at the top of a hill as well. In the beating heart of Japan are two socially awkward travel agents, both desperately trying to avoid being banished to Alaska. 365 Days to the Wedding , which adapts the manga by The World God Only Knows creator Tamiki Wakaki, is a well-rounded package that depicts both an introverted workplace romance and others’ challenges in maintaining adult relationships. In the end, the key to success is falling in love with someone for being a dork about their special interest. RELATED: My Dress-Up Darling Anime Teams Up With Saitama City to Promote Local Doll Production If you want a love story that’s truly metropolitan, then My Dress-Up Darling is your gal — not only for Marin’s impeccable sense of style, but for how much she gets around town as well. She and Wakana, who lives above a doll shop in Saitama, go out on day trips eastward to the Misato area, westward to Ikebukuro and Shibuya, further south to Fujisawa and then outward to Chichibu in a 12-episode span. It’s more than enough distance to work up an appetite, so it’s worth ducking into a certain Denny’s in Fujisawa to get a bite to eat and reminisce about Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai . Doing a full pilgrimage for the series would require stopping by multiple beaches, bridges, streets, stores, public facilities and other establishments, so I recommend ordering from the Grand menu. If you’re looking for an escape from the hustle and bustle of city romance, or perhaps an extra sprinkling of drama, you need only take a train out as far as Komoro in Nagano Prefecture for Waiting in the Summer and Nanao in Ishikawa Prefecture for Insomniacs After School , which both offer small-town vibes with big-heart feels. RELATED: Insomniacs After School Event in Nanao Will Raise Funds for Noto Earthquake Relief We then come back down toward Nagoya, Japan’s fourth-most populous city… and skip around it with a triangle maneuver to make a few comedy-centric stops. The Kawai Complex Guide to Manors and Hostel Behavior boasts its own accommodation and a regular walking tour through Gifu City, Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines! showcases a vibrant version of Toyohashi in its opening sequence and Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions uses a Shiga elementary school as a model. Stocks in bridge and train station representation continue to rise with these three additions. Out of all the “in-betweeners,” Insomniacs After School and Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines! are arguably the biggest champions of their settings on and off the screen. The former ran a campaign to raise funds for local earthquake relief last year, while the latter encouraged travel with a Central Japan Railway collaboration and stamp rally throughout the city. We can hardly call this an all-Japan trip without visiting two of its most popular tourist destinations, can we? Kyoto, known as the "City of Ten Thousand Shrines," is the next closest stop and manifests its status as the country’s cultural capital in Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister . The anime’s atheist protagonist arrives with the hope of studying medicine at the city’s main university, but ends up staying longer than he planned at Amagami Shrine with three shrine maiden sisters as company (and potential brides). Found family is as much of a theme as the usual romantic hijinks, which we see form across both spiritual and inner-city locales. The leap from there to Osaka for Lovely Complex is fortunately more Lovely than Complex, taking as little as 12 minutes between the two cities before a short ride to Sakai. The beloved classic conducts its short-boy-tall-girl bit largely in Kansai dialect — a departure from the usual one-off character stereotype — and features landmarks in the initial opening and ending sequences that reference the region’s history. The ol’ reliable Japanese railway system can only take us as far as Okayama before we have to take a bus to Shin-Okayama Port and an hour-long boat to Tonosho in Shodoshima, where Teasing Master Takagi-san terrorizes Nishikata throughout the narrow streets and coastline that creator Soichiro Yamamoto grew up on. Another Japanese island can be ticked off your bucket list before the two-hour flight to Okinawa as well, since you can explore the various corners of Fukuoka through the corners of More than a Married Couple, but Not Lovers. ’ love triangle. RELATED: 5 Rom-Com Anime To Watch If You Love TONIKAWA: Over the Moon For You Finally, let’s get to the bottom of it. Among its rom-contemporaries, OKITSURA: Fell in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Know What She's Saying is arguably the most comprehensive in its regional aspect. Whether it’s the lack of trains, traditional food and dances, typhoon procedures or how everyone is named Higa, every episode is a new set of lessons in the Okinawan dialect and way of life beyond what you might expect… and it all comes back to a young boy’s crush on a girl who really puts the “mis(s)” into “misunderstandings.”
