Want to go to where Rin and Shirou go on their date in UBW?
What about the building Kiritsugu blows up in Fate/Zero? Or the church where Saber was summoned in Fate/Zero?
Then keep reading!
To celebrate the release of the third Heaven’s Feel movie, we will showcase all the real-life locations that we were able to find in regards to Fate Stay/Night and Fate/Zero series.
This multi-part article series will cover locations all over Japan:
- Kobe
- Nagasaki
- Nagoya
- Yokohama
- Tokyo
More locations will be added soon!
These locations are ones that cannot miss if you are a Fate fan!
Special thanks to my friend fragments who is writing this series. Feel free to ask him questions or talk to him on Twitter!
If you want to contribute to Mipon, check out our guest post guidelines.
Background
In the early 2000s, a Japanese middle school boy loved the worldbuilding and writing about epic fights.
He wound up forming a doujin circle and creating a game. Unbeknownst to him, his doujin circle would become Type-moon, possibly the largest anime franchise ever created, and he would create a world unknown as the Nasuverse. This man is called Kinoko Nasu.
Kinoko Nasu
His flagship franchise is the Fate franchise. Starting with the Fate/Stay Night visual novel, it has spawned an endless number of spinoff games, animes, movies and Fate series watch orders.
Kobe
Back in the good old days, long before F/GO’s gatcha hell, before the first Fate anime, Fate Stay/Night was just known as a visual novel. When the game started gaining popularity in the Japanese market, some Japanese otaku wondered:
“Could some of these visual novel backgrounds exist in real life?”
Photo credit to: rpgvaliant.com
Through their research, they discovered real life locations in Kobe and Nagasaki. The anime series later paid homage to this fact by also featuring scenes in the same locations.
I will go all the way back and look at the earliest pilgrimage locations of the Fate series, which are in Kobe and in Nagasaki.
To get to Kobe take the shinkansen(bullet train) to Shin-Kobe Station, or the regular train to Sannomiya station.
Here is a suggested route for Kobe, follow it depending on your travel plans:
Kobe:
- Tohsaka’s mansion (Sannomiya station)
- Fuyuki Bridge (Port terminal station or Nakakoen station)
- Emiya’s residence (Akashi Station)
- Archery club (Akashi Station)
Tohsaka’s mansion
Tohsaka Rin, my one and only waifu, lives in a big western-style mansion. The mansion is based on two places.
Access: 3 Chome-13-3 Kitanocho, Chuo Ward, Kobe, Hyogo 650-0002
Closest station: Shin-Kobe Station
The first place is called Kazamidori-no-Yakata, a mansion built by a German trading merchant over 100 years ago. It is found in the Kitano-cho neighborhood of Kobe, a neighborhood famous for its foreign residences.
Here we see loli Rin having an argument with Kirei as he walks down the stairs in Kirei fashion. Have fun walking down those stairs:
Some people left this here. I wonder what kind of degenerate goes to visit real-life locations of Chinese Cartoons? Oh fuck that’s me.
Uroko House
Access: 2-chōme-20-4 Kitanochō, Chūō-ku, Kobe, Hyogo
Closest station: Shin-Kobe Station
Uroko house is another European-styled mansion, near Kazamidori-no-Yakata. Here is where my waifu drinks her tea.
Note, this mansion has a 1050yen, however it is bigger than the previous one.
Note, this mansion has a 650yen entrance fee.
Kitano-cho Neighborhood
Other locations are scattered across the neighborhood.
Access: Hyogo, Kobe, Chūō-ku, Kanōchō, 1-chōme−2-5
Access: 2-chōme-16-1 Kitanochō, Chūō-ku, Kobe, Hyogo
Fuyuki Bridge (Kobe Great Bridge)
Access: Chuo Ward, Kobe, Hyogo
Closest station: Port terminal station or Nakakoen station. The bridge is walkable
Most of the locations are found in Kobe, Japan, with some other locations scattered in other places.
Perhaps the most iconic location in the entire Fate series, the Kobe bridge has been featured heavily in the Fate visual novels, animes, mangas, and movies. In real life, this bridge serves as the only connection between Kobe Airport and Kobe.
This means that there are no epic fights in the middle of the night on the bridge, unfortunately, otherwise, those poor Kobe residents will never be able to use their airport in peace. At least the real-life bridge looks as majestic as in the visual novels:
Emiya’s residence
Access: ２丁目-1 大明石町 Akashi, Hyogo 673-0891, Japan
Closest Station: Akashi Station
The Emiya residence is another very iconic location! Who doesn’t remember the place where Saber and Shirou meet Archer and Tohsaka? Remembering my waifu Rin the epic confrontation between Archer and Saber in front of the residence makes me excited every time:
Archery Club
Access: 1-27 Akashikoen, Akashi, Hyogo 673-0847, Japan
The building that the archery club is found past the park in front of the Emiya residence. The real life version of the building also happens to be used for archery!
Bonus: Tokioumi’s Base in Fate/Zero
Tokioumi’s Base is where Gilgamesh is summoned and where Kotomine and Gilgamesh have a talk about the pleasures of the world.
It is found in Hotel Monterrey in Kobe. As the hotel has been undergoing renovations for the past 2 years, we do not have any photos of the location presently. Rinngo-san has a blog article (in Japanese) on this location.
The hotel opens again this April. These locations will be once again open to those staying in the hotel.
Nagasaki
Time to show you some anime attractions in Nagasaki.
Nagasaki can be difficult to get to. One way, starting from Hakata Station in Fukuoka, is by taking the Kamome 25 Limited Express train to Nagasaki Station(fee is covered by JR Pass). The trip takes around 2h30min. From Nagasaki Station, it is possible to ride the tramway to Kotomine’s church.
Note that Nagasaki is VERY hilly, so keep this in mind when traveling there!
Kotomine’s church
Closest station: Ishibashi Station
Access: 5-3 Minamiyamatemachi, Nagasaki, 850-0931, Japan
Anyone up for some YOROKOBE SHOUNEN? Kotomine’s church is located in Nagasaki.
Back in the 1600s, Nagasaki was a common entry point for Europeans into Japan. Hence, several settled there and built western styled buildings, including Oura Church, the basis of Kotomine’s church:
There is a 1000 yen entrance fee for entering the church, but the inside is unrelated to the Fate franchise.
Nagoya
Your Fate pilgrimage journey continues eastwards, towards the northern edge of Nagoya.
Here, you can find a place called the Meiji Mura, a village near a lake.
However, this is not an ordinary village…. It is an open air museum showing unique architecture from the Japanese Meiji Era (1868-1912).
Some of the locations in the museum were even showcased in some iconic scenes in Fate/Zero!
Let’s jump in that museum and explore that area shall we?
Meiji-Mura Museum
St. Francis Xavier’s Cathedral
This is where Kiritsugu summons the worst girl Saber in Fate/Zero. Several shots from the second opening (rip Kalafina) are also shown here.
Maybe you will also be able to summon your own servant when you are there?
Main Entrance Hall and Lobby
Remember when Risei and Tokiomi just walk circles and circles around Kirei? I’ll just leave these here:
Mie Prefectural Government Building
Unfortunately, I was not able to grab any shots of this place, but this is where one of the rooms of the Zouken mansion is based of.
Looks like Zouken might have had some influence in the Japanese Prefectural politics:
Access
The Meiji-Mura museum can be accessed from Nagoya Station.
The Meiji-Mura official website has a guide of how to get there. Note that none of the routes are covered by the JR pass.
The map of Meiji-Mura is shown here. I recommend printing the map in advance, as they might not have English maps on site.
The Fate locations in the area are the following. The numbers in brackets correspond to the number marking the location on the official map linked above.
- St. Francis Xavier’s Cathedral (Number 51)
- Main Entrance Hall and Lobby, Imperial Hotel (Number 67)
- Mie Prefectural Government Building (Number 13)
Admission fee:
- Adult: 1700 yen.
- Senior (65 years and over) and university student: 1300 yen.
- Senior high school student: 1,000 yen.
- Junior high school student or below: 600 yen.
Note that each location is close to each other and accessible by foot.
Thanks again to fragments for putting together this fantastic guide! Follow him on Twitter!
We would also like to give a big thanks to Flying Bird-san, Nagawarabi-san and Ringo-san for letting us use their blogs as reference.
Which of the Fate’s series is your favorite?
Let me know in the comments below! Does this article make you want to go to Kobe, Nagasaki or Nagoya?