A Writer’s Inspiration Destination: The Middle of Nowhere, Japan
Four trains, heavy luggage, craggy mountains, village of 3,000 people, an astronomical research station, and American-style ranches. But no buses…and no English.
Welcome to my inspiration destination in The Middle of Nowhere, Japan.
Inspiration Is More Than Ideas in Your Head
Many writers are asked where they get their ideas from. I have a few sources:
- where I live
- emotions tied to personal events (but not the events themselves)
- places I visit
- activities I participate in
- shows I watch
memories—no matter how fuzzy—from childhood that I want to revisit
My inspiration comes from anywhere in my world. The more I experience, the more inspired I become.
Travelling to Japan was part research for a character—you may have met Mayumi Enomoto in Teas of Joy—but it also included an inspirational pilgrimage.
Rabbit Holes: Time Wasters? Or Sources of Inspiration?
I like to know the ending. What happened to everyone from my grade school class? To celebrities I used to idolize, but who seem to have fallen off the face of the earth? To authors I stopped reading many moons ago?
And to childhood shows?
Such was the rabbit hole I tumbled down about two years ago. I’d discovered in 2023 that an anime show I’d watched as a kid, Grendizer, was getting a reboot.
In the age of reboots, this can cause eyes to roll, but the original was nearing 50 years of age. The trailerexcited me about rediscovering this relic from the early 80s (originally broadcast in the mid-70s in Japan).
My rabbit hole opened. I located the original episodes, the 25 English-dubbed episodes, and the full series dubbed in French, and a “movie” in German. I even found an academic book on the subject in French.
When the original Japanese episodes arrived (with English subtitles), I watched all 74 over a long weekend. For the next year, I rewatched them all, one at a time, during my lunch break.
And the more I watched, the more I discovered. For a show I’d originally viewed through the eyes of a six- or seven-year-old, it tackled some difficult subjects: PTSD, found family, child soldiers, radiation, war, and many others.
Yes, it had many hokey moments, forced plot tactics, and two “transformation scenes” that could be extended or cut as needed to ensure the show reached its required length for television broadcast.
Once plans for Japan had solidified, I included the suspected location of this series in my itinerary. There is simply something magical about touching—whether through sight, sound, smell, taste, or feel—creations that have affected my life.
The Village in The Middle of Nowhere: Minamimaki
I’d learned in my research that Grendizer may have taken place in a village called Minamimaki, an area renowned for astronomy. Several locations had clear connections to the series: Makiba Park, Jersey cow ranches, the Nobeyama Radio Observatory, and the Yatsugatake Mountains (specifically mentioned in the second episode) were all within a few kilometres of each other.
My train trip took me 1,500 m above sea level. Minamimaki is part of an agricultural area comprising valleys tucked in among mountains. You don’t have to travel here on an anime pilgrimage to marvel at what nature can create.
As my two-car train pulled up to the Nobeyama train station, the signs of The Middle of Nowhere, Japan, surrounded me: an unmanned train station, very few houses, no taxis, and one convenience store at the train station that didn’t even offer sushi. (A rarity in Japan.)
Minamimaki covers 133 km2 and has a population density of about 22 people per km2. For contrast, Tokyo has 14 million people living in about 2,194 km2, giving a population density of about 6,381 people per km2.
I definitely found myself in The Middle of Nowhere, Japan.
Landscape and Story
The best settings in a novel are a character unto themselves: they have personality and affect how the human (and sometimes animal) characters behave and what choices they make.
Standing where Grendizer likely took place made that even clearer to me.
I’ll use the protagonist, Duke Fleed (sometimes romanized as Freed), to illustrate what I mean. He has two identities:
- Duke Fleed is the prince of Planet Fleed and pilot of Grendizer.
- Daisuke Umon is a farmhand trying to live a peaceful life, free of violence and destruction.
However, the settings for both identities often act as a backdrop for each respective part.
- As Duke, he fights in his mecha, Grendizer, often in harsh environments: underwater, in the mountains, in the Arctic. Viewers rarely see Grendizer in a peaceful setting except occasionally at the end of an episode, with the red setting sun in the background.
- As Daisuke, he cares for the farm animals and often plays his guitar alone or with friends, but often in a natural setting.
- Daisuke usually becomes Duke in the Space Science Laboratory, either by jumping off a nearby cliff or by racing down a chute and jumping into Grendizer’s cockpit. The lab is where he can be whoever is needed.
As a viewer, I can enjoy the stories that unfold in each episode. As a traveller, I could touch where these stories could have happened.
Landscape in My Current Work-in-Progress
I initially travelled to Minamimaki to experience the possible source of inspiration or location (or both) of Grendizer. But I came away with much, much more.
When I write, I struggle with setting the most. I set my novels where I live to make creating settings easier. Creating new worlds, whether planets or villages, requires not only an extraordinary imagination, but also a memory of similar talents so you can track where everything takes place.
My current romance novel will challenge my struggle, though. It’s an opposites-attract story whose idea began with opposing personalities: a tall, shy man in his 50s, and an outgoing woman who’s over a foot shorter, also in her 50s. They live next to each other in an apartment building.
That led to the inevitable question: If their apartments are identical in layout, how has each character decorated theirs to showcase their individuality?
The answer had to expand beyond “he’s tidy; she’s messy,” and their living situation. It needed to fuse settings that others experience daily with the character’s point of view, something I’ve rarely done.
From Pilgrimage to Page
In my romance novels, at least one scene usually takes place along the Iron Horse Trail. However, all characters view it in the same light: as a romantic location to steal a kiss, hold hands for the first time, and share similar romantic moments. If you visit the actual location, you’ll understand why.
This time, the trail carries different meanings for the romantic leads. For one, it’s a place to demonstrate care for the environment. For the other, it is a place reminiscent of fear experienced long ago.
Same trail.
As I continue to write, I’ll discover more ways to incorporate the real-life environment of my novels so that, with each subsequent story, readers hopefully close the book at the end having experienced the same location in a different way.
Spending those few days in Minamimaki, a potential source of inspiration for Grendizer, inspired me to explore where I live and challenge myself by incorporating more of the scenery into my characters' lives.
I can’t wait to share the final story with you!