Introduction

This quotation hints at the pressure that local authorities and communities might face when they start to engage in film or fan tourism, perceiving its economic potentials (and therefore its positive outcomes, but also its unpredictable development). While in many cases, Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) attempt to implement strategies for utilising the potential of filming locations (e.g. Hudson & Ritchie, 2006; Radomskaya, 2018), there are also cases where misconceptions or coincidences have led to unexpected fan pilgrimage sites (e.g. Norris, 2018; Jang, 2020). In the latter case, when local authorities and communities suddenly ‘discover’ that their municipality has become a fan pilgrimage site, there is no one right way to react. Fan studies have discussed the potential ‘tensions between commercialisation and “authentic” experience at fan sites’ (Williams, 2018: 99), and studies on film tourism have shown that ‘more tourism is not always beneficial’ (Croy et al., 2018: 399).

In this chapter, we investigate the development of two fan tourism sites that experienced a sudden influx of fans in the mid-2010s, both in relation to the popular Japanese manga franchise Attack on Titan ( Shingeki no kyojin, 2008–2021 for the core manga series). The rural cities, Nördlingen in Germany and Hita in Japan, have reacted to the growth in fan pilgrimage tourism in very different ways. Nördlingen does not engage in fan tourism because it is not officially recognised as a model location; there is no legitimate basis to promote the municipality in such a manner and there is also a risk of copyright issues.