CATDOLL: I am so happy that fans of Girls und Panzer donated 100 million yen and took the initiative to pay taxes

How much benefit can a city gain from becoming a "holy place" through animation promotion? With the popularity of the "Girls und Panzer" movie, the most popular holy place is Oarai Town in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. After the 2012 TV animation "Girls und Panzer" was broadcast, this place became an instant hit, and the pilgrims who come to the "holy place pilgrimage" every year also bring huge business opportunities to the town.

However, this not only increased the income of the accommodation and catering industry, but also the amount of donations received by the government increased by dozens of times. In December last year alone, Oarai Town received 160 million yen in donations, which was a huge profit. On November 21, 2015, the theatrical version of "Girls und Panzer" was released, and a large number of new scenes of Oarai Town appeared in the play, which once again brought about a trend of pilgrimage for animation fans.

How scary is the spending power of anime fans? Let's take a look at the amount of donations Oarai Town has received over the years:

List of donations to Oarai Town over the years

The Japanese government has a system called "ふるさと税" (hometown tax), which means people can choose to donate money to any local government, and the amount of the donation can be deducted from the original tax payable. From the chart above, we can see that since the broadcast of the animation "Girls und Panzer" in 2012, the amount of donations received by Oarai Town has skyrocketed. Until the government recently announced the total amount of donations in 2015, the amount was even more terrifying...

Received 160 million in one month

In 2014, Oarai Town received 7.63 million yen in donations, which was much better than the less than 2 million yen it received each year before the anime was aired. However, after the release of the Girls und Panzer movie in late November 2015, the donation amount in December 2015 alone reached 160 million yen, and the total amount for the whole year reached over 170 million yen! What kind of magic is this?

Donations can actually be exchanged for gifts

The reason why fans of animation are so crazy about spending money is that there are many benefits in it. As long as you donate 1,000 yen to Oarai Town, you can get 5 "consumption points", which can be exchanged for local specialties in return. The so-called "specialties" are, of course, special products packaged in Girls und Panzer.

Various "Girls und Panzer" packaging specialties

The result of crazy fans buying a lot of goods

In addition to these special products that can be obtained through donations, there are also a wide variety of souvenirs that can be sold directly. I believe that the income from these souvenirs has also made Oarai Town a lot of money.

Constantly innovate souvenirs for animation fans

From this, it seems that if the local governments with financial difficulties make a last-ditch effort to make animations, will they be able to make a comeback? But so far, I have never seen anyone so happy to pay taxes...

via: Otaku News

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