Tachikawa Filming Locations Guide: Anime Pilgrimage and TV Dramas

The model for Academy City: Tachikawa’s long friendship with the “A Certain” series

You cannot talk about anime pilgrimage in Tachikawa without the A Certain (とある, Toaru) series.

According to the association’s “Tachikawa × Anime” page, its predecessor, the Tachikawa Tourism Association, held its first collaboration event with the TV anime A Certain Magical Index (とある魔術の禁書目録), in which scenery resembling Tachikawa appears. A “Tachikawa × Anime” programme followed, which continues to collaborate with TV anime and manga in which Tachikawa appears, centred on A Certain Magical Index and its spin-offs. The programme’s name is “Regional Promotion of A Certain Municipality” (とある自治体の地域振興). A play on the series title: the local authority calls itself “A Certain Municipality”. I know few towns whose officials can make a joke like that without blushing.

The story is set in a fictional city called “Academy City”. The association reports that Tachikawa, as the model for Academy City, was certified in the 2025 edition of the Anime Tourism Association’s “88 Anime Pilgrimage Sites You Want to Visit” for two works, A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun. For Railgun, it was Tachikawa’s eighth consecutive certification since 2018; for Index, its seventh consecutive since 2019. Among 88 pilgrimage sites chosen on the basis of votes from anime fans in Japan and abroad, Tachikawa is selected year after year.

The streetscape in front of the station and the monorail running overhead. The neatly laid-out blocks north of the station and, beyond them, the grounds of research institutes and colleges. Where fictional Academy City and real Tachikawa overlap is most fun to discover yourself, by watching the shows and walking the streets.

The collaboration has become not a one-off event but a seasonal fixture of the town. According to the association, in 2026, as “Regional Promotion of A Certain Municipality 2026”, it will be held on 14 and 15 November with the Hana Midori Culture Center in Showa Kinen Park as the main venue. At Takamatsu Station on the Tama Monorail, from 10 October to 15 November, station-only announcements by the voice actors who play characters in the series are broadcast, and the station gallery introduces past projects. On 22 February 2026 the series’ first film concert was held at TACHIKAWA STAGE GARDEN, and the association prepared “hospitality projects” for fans visiting Tachikawa.

Around town, 21 vending machines are wrapped in artwork from the series. On sale is a Tachikawa-only “Coconut & Pineapple Cider”, created with the “Coconut Cider” favoured by the heroine Mikoto Misaka in mind. The association’s page lists other collaboration goods, including something called udo-inari — inari sushi made with Tokyo udo, the pale white vegetable that is a Tachikawa specialty. Tachikawa’s white specialty and Academy City meet inside one pouch of fried tofu.

Sixteen years. For a relationship with an anime, that is a long time. Tachikawa remains an A Certain pilgrimage site not only because of the series’ popularity but because the town itself has refused to let the relationship go, and has put work into it every year. Wrapping vending machines in artwork, piping voice actors into a station, stuffing Academy City even into inari sushi. There are people in this town who have kept up that effort for sixteen years.

Tachikawa on screen is supported by more than the fans. Outside the frame, there are many other people.

The people outside the frame: the location service and 400 extras

Tachikawa has an office that helps with filming. It is called Tachikawa Location Service.

According to its official page, Tachikawa Location Service introduces Tachikawa’s nature, facilities and streetscapes and supports the production and filming of films, TV programmes, TV commercials and the like. The page explains that while Tachikawa has plenty of greenery and a rich natural environment, the areas around the station and the commercial districts have been modernised, and it is easy to reach from central Tokyo and convenient — so it is often used as a location for dramas and programmes. The service has two desks: a private video-production support company handles production enquiries and location registration, while the Tachikawa Tourism and Convention Association handles registration of extras and location-lunch suppliers. Filming on Sun Sun Road, in Faret Tachikawa Art, or at properties managed by the city requires an application through the service. The city of Tachikawa likewise advises anyone filming for commercial purposes in a city park to consult Tachikawa Location Service.

As of February 2026, 400 extras are registered. Registration has no restrictions by address, sex or age, and contact is by email only. When a shoot is scheduled, registrants who match the production’s wishes are contacted. One of the passers-by in a Sunday-night drama might be the person who sat next to you in a café by the station yesterday. Tachikawa is that kind of town.

Extras appear again and again in the association’s records. On 11 March 2020, episode 1 of TBS’s Sunday-night drama Hanzawa Naoki was shot at a bar in Akebonocho, with many extras taking part as various scenes were filmed into the night. In 2016’s Shin Godzilla too, many extras joined filming inside and outside the base. And there were citizen extras in Warau Matryoshka‘s campaign-truck scene.

Shops that can supply roke-ben — location lunch boxes — are also being sought. Depending on the shooting hours, the page says, a range of menus is needed: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Lunch boxes that never appear on screen for even a second hold the shoot together. Every February the association also holds an exhibition introducing dramas and films shot in the city.

One of the most beautiful scenes of Tachikawa on screen was born in 2025. According to the association, the ginkgo avenue along the Canal in Showa Kinen Park appeared in the very last scene of the final episode of Anpan, NHK’s morning serial drama. When it aired, the Canal was green, but the association adds that in the coming season a golden world will spread out. You can go and see the final scene of a morning drama in gold, in autumn. The story of the park’s ginkgo avenue itself I leave to the article on the park.

When you want to visit a place you have seen on screen, there is something to be careful of. Many of Tachikawa’s pilgrimage sites are not tourist spots, but places right next to people’s daily lives.

Pilgrimage etiquette: what to watch out for in residential areas and on private land

On the etiquette of visiting anime pilgrimage sites, the Anime Tourism Association publishes a “Request regarding manners when visiting anime pilgrimage sites”. It explains that pilgrimage information officially provided by the association, the works or local governments presents spots that welcome fans, confirmed with the works and the communities. It then asks that, because information exchanged among fans on social media or other unofficial information may not assume visitors, people using such information take extra care to observe visiting manners.

This applies equally to walking in Tachikawa. First, start from official information. The association’s location feature and its A Certain pages are also lists of places where the community is saying, “Please come.”

Next, do not go looking for the characters’ homes. The heroine of Nagi’s Long Vacation and the two of Saint Young Men live in apartments in Tachikawa. But walking around trying to match an apartment in a story to some real person’s home is nothing but a nuisance to those who live there. Tachikawa’s residential streets are places where people live before they are any story’s setting.

Be mindful of private land too. Take the Yagawa Benzaiten shrine in Hagoromocho: according to the association’s records, it was featured in TV Asahi’s information programme Tokyo Site in 2013 and appeared in the drama Ninja ni Kekkon wa Muzukashii (“Marriage Is Hard for Ninjas”) in 2023. But according to the association, it is a precinct kept privately by one family for generations, with set visiting hours. Before it is a filming location, it is a place of prayer — and someone’s land.

Parks have rules worth keeping too. Among the matters that draw the most complaints about park use, the city of Tachikawa lists making a nuisance of yourself to neighbours — such as shouting late into the night — and not taking your rubbish home. Many of the parks that have appeared in dramas are, on ordinary days, the neighbourhood children’s playgrounds. Relive your favourite scenes in the daytime, at a moderate volume.

When you take photos, take care not to fill the frame with the faces of passers-by or children. If you photograph inside a shop or facility, ask first. And for filming for commercial purposes, as mentioned, you need to consult Tachikawa Location Service.

None of this is difficult. Do what the hero on screen would have wanted you to do for the people of that town. That alone covers most things.

Solving the mystery: why is Tachikawa a place people come to?

Back to the first question. Why is Tachikawa filmed so much, and why do characters in stories come to Tachikawa?

Half the answer is in Tachikawa Location Service’s description. Plenty of greenery, rich nature, a modernised station area, easy access from central Tokyo, convenience. For a film crew, Tachikawa is a town where you can shoot city, nature and suburb, each with its own look, in one day. Even within a few hundred metres of the station you can get your “change of picture”, and the velodrome will turn into anything you like.

The other half was written in an unexpected document. The Cabinet Office gives several locational advantages as its reasons for putting the national disaster headquarters’ backup facility in Tachikawa. It is about 30 kilometres from central Tokyo — a suitable distance at which it is unlikely to be hit by the same disaster at the same time. It is on a plateau with relatively firm ground. And it has room to spare.

Not too close to the centre, not too far. Firm underfoot, and spacious. The reasons the state chose Tachikawa as “a place to fall back to and regroup in an emergency” look to me just like the reasons storytellers choose Tachikawa as “a place to rest for a while” for their heroes. A town within train distance for someone worn out in central Tokyo, with a wide sky, parks, and everyday life ticking along. Just right for taking a break, spending a holiday, or rebuilding the capital.

Tachikawa is not a town that stands out because it tries to. Rather, it is called into stories as a place where someone catches their breath. That it generally does not give its name on screen is probably for the same reason. It stands quietly beside the lead and holds up the background. Tachikawa is good at that kind of role.

Still, the next time the station square at Tachikawa appears on the snow news, I think I will want to say to the town on the screen, quietly: otsukaresama — thanks for all your hard work.

Some weekend, try entering Tachikawa from outside the screen. It is about 30 minutes from Shinjuku on the Chuo Line, and from Kawasaki you can stay on the Nambu Line all the way. Stand on the North Exit deck, and a pavement you have seen somewhere before will probably stretch out in front of you.

Quiz answer

The answer is (B), 2010. According to the association, its predecessor, the Tachikawa Tourism Association, held its first collaboration event in 2010 with the TV anime A Certain Magical Index, in which scenery resembling Tachikawa appears. Counting from then, Tachikawa and A Certain have kept company for sixteen years.

Before you go

• Tachikawa Filming Location Special (Tachikawa Tourism and Convention Association): Lists filming locations and years for each work, searchable by title or place. Check the official site for the latest entries: https://tokyo-tachikawa.org/location/
• Tachikawa × Anime (“Regional Promotion of A Certain Municipality”): Collaboration events, locations of the wrapped vending machines, and goods: https://tokyo-tachikawa.org/anime/ and https://tokyo-tachikawa.org/toaru/
• “Regional Promotion of A Certain Municipality 2026”: Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 November 2026, 10:00–16:00, main venue the Hana Midori Culture Center in Showa Kinen Park (goes ahead in light rain, cancelled in stormy weather). Station announcements at Takamatsu Station on the Tama Monorail run from 10 October to 15 November 2026, every 30 minutes from 10:00 to 20:00. Dates and content may change, so check the association’s page: https://tokyo-tachikawa.org/toaru_event/
• From central Tokyo and Kanagawa: About 30 minutes from Shinjuku to Tachikawa Station on the JR Chuo Line (according to a Tokyo Metropolitan Government Bureau of Environment walking-trail leaflet). The JR Nambu Line links Kawasaki Station and Tachikawa Station, so from the Kawasaki side you arrive without changing trains. Check that day’s timetable.
• Getting around from Tachikawa Station: Sun Sun Road and Faret Tachikawa are right outside the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station. On foot, simply walking north up Sun Sun Road from the North Exit deck, looping through the Faret Tachikawa blocks and GREEN SPRINGS and returning to the station takes you past many of the locations.
• Tachikawa Keirin velodrome: If you plan to visit, check race days and admission information on the official site first. The velodrome’s history is covered in another article in this series.
• Showa Kinen Park: The ginkgo avenue along the Canal usually turns yellow in autumn. Opening hours and admission on the official site: https://www.showakinen-koen.jp/
• Extras, location lunches and filming enquiries: Contact Tachikawa Location Service. Filming for commercial purposes on Sun Sun Road, in Faret Tachikawa Art, at city-managed properties or in city parks requires consultation or an application in advance: https://tachicon.tokyo-tachikawa.org/location-service/
• Etiquette: Do not go searching for characters’ homes or wander onto private land. Keep to visiting hours where they are set (such as at Yagawa Benzaiten). Do not make noise in parks at night. Keep strangers’ and children’s faces out of your photos, and ask before photographing inside shops.
• What to combine it with: Tachikawa Manga Park and Oni Park on the South Exit side of the station; Cinema City at the North Exit; and the Tachikawa Life Safety Learning Center and the Tachikawa Regional Disaster Prevention Base in Midoricho. All of them connect to Tachikawa on screen.
• General tips: Carry an IC transit card such as Suica or PASMO for the trains and monorail, and check opening days on official websites before you set out.

After the location tour, at the North Exit

Touring filming locations involves more walking than you expect. Up and down Sun Sun Road, round the corners of Faret, out to the park, and your calves start storing up the day’s distance.

A one-minute walk from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, on the third floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店). It is a lava-stone hot yoga studio, where you practise on a floor laid with lava-stone plates. It also offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30, with no difference between days of the week. Whether you tour locations from the morning or come after seeing the station lights at night, there is time to drop in.

A trial yoga lesson costs ¥1,980 including tax, with two bath towels, one face towel and a mat included as rentals, so you can come with nothing. Pregnant guests cannot join lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available.

Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

• On the Shore: https://ontheshore.jp/
• Trial lesson booking: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

The heroes of these stories come to Tachikawa to rest. A traveller tired from walking who catches their breath by the station is, probably, using this town exactly as intended.

Cover photo: The pedestrian deck at Tachikawa Station North Exit, with station-front buildings beyond its red arches (Photo: KΛNΛTΛ / CC BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

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