The Authenticity Experience Of Tourists In An Anime Pilgrimage

With the rapid expansion of the ACGN industries,including animation,comics,games,and novels,anime pilgrimage,which mainly involves visiting the filming locations and places of these works,has become an increasingly popular way of traveling among the younger generation born in the 1990 s.The key motivation and fundamental driver for tourists to embark on an anime pilgrimage is the reenactment of photo shootings,imitating to perform and experience virtually from ACGN in the physical world.However,little academic attention has been paid to how tourists obtain such an authentic experience and what its specific dimensions are.Although some scholars have begun to pay attention to the definition of the "hyperreality" experience of tourists in live-action movies and TV series tourism,unlike these types based on the reproduction or simulation of reality,the appeal of anime and video game works lies in the virtual nature of their artificially synthesized motion pictures.The "hyperreality" in anime pilgrimage is neither a mere simulation of reality nor a completely false imagination,but a fantastic and realistic parallel space with authenticity based on reality and a fairy tale world of fantasy.This research focuses on the question,"What kind of authenticity do tourists to anime pilgrimages experience and how is it constructed?" This research analyzes the structural dimensions and the formation mechanism of tourists’ authentic experiences on anime pilgrimages by collecting data from online texts and semi-structured interviews,combining the coding analysis of grounded theory and Cohen’s authentication theory.The research found that the authentic experience of anime pilgrimages for tourists is realized and deepened through different authentication methods: tourists realize landscape authenticity,utopia authenticity,tribal authenticity,and self authenticity experiences through factual authentication,imaginary authentication,social authentication,as well as self authentication.First,tourists’ authentic experiences consist of four dimensions: landscape authenticity,utopia authenticity,tribal authenticity,and self-authenticity experience.The landscape authenticity perceived and experienced by tourists in anime pilgrimage relates to the fact that the tourists can experience the authentic restoration of the local scenes and stories to the works and can also utilize them to explore the authentic ACGN culture and local cultural customs in depth;utopia authenticity refers to the tourists’ roles of "breaking the wall" and "astral projection." Utopia authenticity,which indicates that tourists can enter the ACGN world and feel the anti-structural experience of playing ACGN roles isolated from their daily selves;tribal authenticity means that tourists can feel the same emotions among themselves and between other tourists and local residents based on joint works so that tourists can open their hearts and feel sincerity and identity among each other;self authenticity suggests that tourists can freely express themselves,indulge in consumption to release their sensuality and transcend their everyday selves through the self-fulfillment process of challenging themselves,immersing themselves physically and mentally,and achieving themselves.Second,tourists construct an authentic experience through four forms of authentication.Initially,tourists confirm the similarity between the landscape elements and the content of ACGN works based on factual authentication and perceive the authenticity of the landscape through photo restoration;subsequently,tourists perceive the authenticity of the utopia by entering some state of narrative transportation through imaginary authentication caused by embodied imitation,plot performance,and cosplay;then,tourists perform social authentication to experience the emotional resonance and value identification among tribal members through external rituals,communication,and sharing,or souvenirs left by fans.Finally,through the sense of accomplishment,satisfaction,and identity brought by the anime pilgrimage,the tourists can prove the meaning and value of their existence and generate a sense of self-authenticity.This research is conducive to deepening the theoretical debate on tourism authenticity experience,enriching the research field and research perspective of existing authenticity theories,expanding the research on the connotation and dimension of film and television tourism authenticity experience,and promoting the empirical research on the mechanism of tourists’ authenticity experience authentication.At the same time,this research lays a theoretical foundation for developing and marketing the new tourism industries in the new era,such as "animation and tourism" and "game and tourism." Meanwhile,it offers a theoretical basis for managers to design tourism products to promote the "wall-breaking" experience between the virtual and real worlds for tourists.It also provides a set of detailed and comprehensive methodological guidance for managers to design tourism products to facilitate the "wall-breaking" experience between the virtual and real worlds.