“Namiya Zakkaten no Kiseki (The Miracles of the Namiya General Store),” based on the namesake novel written by Keigo Higashino, began to be shown in China from February 2 (Friday) after hitting the big screen in Japan. The main filming location for the movie was Bungotakada City in Oita Prefecture, southwestern Japan. Location shooting took place at many popular tourist spots, including “Bungotakada Showa Town.” Chinese-language location guide maps are distributed at “Showa Roman-gura,” a Bungotakada theme park featuring products made in the Showa Period (1926-1989). Please enjoy visiting filming locations in Bungotakada City.

(Photo: http://prw.kyodonews.jp/img/201802140957-O1-RAsBhPkY)

“Bungotakada Showa Town,” a tourist spot in Bungotakada City where nostalgic shopping streets of the Showa 30s (1955-1964) are preserved, is gaining popularity. An old-fashioned bonnet-type bus is still in active service. The atmosphere of Bungotakada Showa Town caught the attention of film director Ryuichi Hiroki who thought that it would be suitable to be a filming location for the movie in which a story unfolds while switching back and forth between the present time (2012) and the past (1969, 1980).

Please visit the following URLs for tourist spots that became filming locations as well as an array of other tourist destinations that represent Bungotakada City.

http://prw.kyodonews.jp/attach/201802140957-O1-58f1wt5X.pdf

Filming location guide map (simplified Chinese characters):

http://www.city.bungotakada.oita.jp/js/finder/upload/files/freepage/kikaku/kikaku4/namiya_t_1109%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD.pdf

City’s official tourism website (simplified Chinese characters): https://www.showanomachi.com/cn/

Japanese movie “The Miracles of the Namiya General Store” (distributed by Kadokawa Corporation and Shochiku Co., Ltd.)

Keigo Higashino’s novel “The Miracles of the Namiya General Store” topped the list of books sold in China in the first half of 2017, as tallied by Amazon.com Inc.'s China division. The novel has become a major bestseller in the world with cumulative total sales of more than 12 million copies. The novel was made into a movie with the same title, starring Ryosuke Yamada of the popular all-male idol group “Hey! Say! JUMP.” The movie became a big hit after being shown in more than 340 theaters in Japan from September 2017.