Reki-jo Japanese History Otaku

The who and what of Reki-jo

There has been a growing interest in Japanese history among some women in Japan that has resulted in a boom of spiritual pop-culture-based heritage tourism. Where groups of young women visit Shinto and Buddhist shrines and historical sites that are featured in Japanese media such as in Anime, video games, and Manga. That is also historically set in pre-modern, aka pre-Meiji, Japan. The group of women that practice this type of tourism is a small subgroup of the much larger Otaku subcultural phenomenon in Japan. They are called “Reki-jo”, a name that translates to “History-Fangirls”. Although that name implies an all accompanying fascination with history. Reki-jo primarily focuses their interest in pre-modern Japanese history. Reki-jo sometimes get together to engage in tourism to historically significant Japanese sites, potentially helping to revitalize tourism in dying rural areas of Japan. The Reko-jo folk group challenges gender norms by engaging in historical interests typically enjoyed by older men. They also contribute new historical-based understandings to their national identities through a framework of an apparition of real historical Japanese figures, mixed in with admiration for a romanticized version of the said figure in modern pop-cultural depictions