Constructing and Consuming Space in Detective Fiction Tourism: The Case of the Detective Conan Mystery Tour

Japan is the country with the most active production and consumption of detective fiction in East Asia It has a publishing label specializing in detective fiction that publishes monthly magazines and presents annual mystery novel awards. Popular tourism sites related to detective fiction and writers began to appear in Japan in the 1990s based on the development of video media and local tourism promotion policies. […] As the imagined space created by literature is visualized and reinforced through video media of actual places, it leads people to people to those places, and in a sense, video media serves as a guide. […] Motives for detective fiction tourism most often arise from audience's experience of completed narratives—that is, they travel because they have read complete tales set in the tourist location. However, in 2001, Japan introduced a new style of detective fiction tourism: the Detective Conan mystery tour. Based on the Japanese comics and animated series Detective Conan, this self-guided tour is designed so that participants take on the role of detective, visiting different (settings) by following clues in the story.