Mizuki Shigeru Road

Shigeru Mizuki grew up in Sakaiminato and drew GeGeGe no Kitaro, the manga that put yokai - the spirits, monsters and oddities of Japanese folklore - into the mainstream from the 1960s. In 1993, with the port town's economy declining, the local authority installed twenty-three small bronze statues of his characters along the street from the station; the idea worked and the number has grown to 177, with the street lit at night, the shops themed, a museum at the far end, and the trains on the branch line painted in character liveries. Visitor numbers went from almost nothing to millions a year and the town credits the project with reversing its decline - it is one of the clearest examples in Japan of a place rebuilt around a single cultural asset. The bronzes are small, individually captioned, and worth reading rather than walking past.

What you actually see

• 177 bronze yokai - small captioned statues along eight hundred metres of street.
• A town turned round - a declining port revived by the project from 1993.
• Painted trains - the branch line running in character liveries.
• The museum - Mizuki's work and the folklore behind it, at the far end of the road.

When to go

All year; after dark for the lit statues. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The retail along the road is repetitive and heavily themed. The bronzes are small and easy to miss. Sakaiminato is a long way out on a branch line. Some shops close early in winter.

Nearby

Yonago is south; Matsue and Lake Shinji are south-east.