Your Name: the real places
Two places, four hundred kilometres apart, and the film is the line between them. In Tokyo it is a flight of steps in Yotsuya that nobody would have photographed before 2016 and that hundreds now do. In Gifu it is the town of Hida-Furukawa, which the film draws close enough to recognise from the platform: the station, the shrine on the hill, the library, and a bus stop in a hamlet up the Miyagawa valley. Hida's own tourism office names all four, which is why this list can be exact. Go to Gifu for the film and you get a river town that was worth the trip before the film existed — the spring festival at the shrine is on the UNESCO list. Go to the steps in Yotsuya and you get four minutes and a residential street where people live.
5 places
Building · Rules of its own
Hida city library
The library where the search for the town's name is made, named by Hida city as one of the film's model locations. It is a working municipal library, with a wooden reading room and local residents in it, five minutes from the station in the old town.
- Address
- 岐阜県飛騨市古川町本町2-22
- Getting there
- JR Takayama line, Hida-Furukawa, about 5 min on foot
Five minutes on foot from Hida-Furukawa station, in the old town. Its own opening hours apply; there is a visitors' book fans have been signing for years.
Rules of its own. People are reading and working here. It is quiet by rule, not by courtesy: no photography of other users, no calls, and ask at the desk before photographing the rooms at all.
On the map · Official page · read on September 25, 2026
Station · Rules of its own
Hida-Furukawa station
The station the search for the town begins at, and the platform the film draws almost exactly. Hida city's own tourism site names it as one of the film's spots. It is a small two-platform country station on the Takayama line, fifteen minutes up from Takayama, and the town begins the moment you leave it.
- Address
- 岐阜県飛騨市古川町金森町8-22
- Getting there
- JR Takayama line, Hida-Furukawa, 15 min from Takayama
Fifteen minutes by local train from Takayama on the JR Takayama line. Everything else in Furukawa on this list is within twenty minutes on foot of the ticket gate.
Rules of its own. A working station on a line with few trains. Stay behind the yellow line, do not photograph from the platform edge, and keep off the tracks and the crossing.
On the map · Official page · read on September 25, 2026
Shrine · Rules of its own
Keta Wakamiya shrine
The shrine on the rise above the town, named by Hida's tourism office as a model for the film's shrine. Its own reason to exist is older and larger than the film: the Furukawa festival on 19 and 20 April is its annual rite, and it is on the UNESCO intangible heritage list. Ten minutes uphill from the station, through the streets of the old town.
- Address
- 岐阜県飛騨市古川町上気多1297
- Getting there
- JR Takayama line, Hida-Furukawa, about 10 min on foot
About ten minutes on foot from Hida-Furukawa station. Open grounds, free, and best in the morning before the coach tours reach Furukawa.
Rules of its own. An active shrine with a festival the whole town takes part in. Bow at the gate, keep off the centre of the path, do not enter the inner hall, and if a rite is in progress, stand back and wait.
On the map · Official page · read on September 25, 2026
Place · Rules of its own
Ochiai bus stop, Miyagawa
A bus stop on a road up the Miyagawa valley, named by Hida city as one of the images the film used. It is a shelter, a timetable and a hamlet, and it is the location on this list that is least like a destination and most like the film: the point where two people are a long way from anywhere.
- Address
- 岐阜県飛騨市宮川町落合
- Getting there
- By car or the Miyagawa community bus, up the valley from Furukawa
Up the valley from Furukawa by car, or on the community bus, whose timetable is short and worth reading before setting out.
Rules of its own. A bus stop in a hamlet where a handful of people actually wait for that bus. Do not park across the road or the field entrances, take nothing, leave nothing, and give the seat up.
On the map · Official page · read on September 25, 2026
Shrine · Rules of its own
Suga Shrine steps, Yotsuya
The stone steps up to the shrine, which the last scene of the film ends on. Shinjuku's own tourism page names them as the stairs that appeared in the film, and that is the whole attraction: a flight of steps in a quiet quarter of Yotsuya, with the shrine at the top and a view back down over roofs.
- Address
- 東京都新宿区須賀町5
- Getting there
- JR Chuo-Sobu line, Yotsuya or Shinanomachi, about 8 min on foot
Eight minutes on foot from Yotsuya or Shinanomachi. The steps are a public right of way and cost nothing; the shrine at the top is open daily.
Rules of its own. These steps are how people who live here get home, and it is a working shrine at the top. Do not stand in the middle to be photographed, do not block the handrail side, keep your voice down, and take the shot from the pavement rather than from a neighbour's gate.
On the map · Official page · read on September 25, 2026
How this list is made
A place is listed when the work, its publisher or the town's own tourism page names it, and the page it was read on is linked with the date it was read. Positions come from OpenStreetMap or from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, never from Google.
We never show a frame of a work beside a photograph of a place. The scene is described in words instead, which is also the version a screen reader and three languages can use. How we check and rank, in full.