Slam Dunk’s Holy Land Turns Lawless Amid Inbound Tourism Surge

The nearby residents are at their wit’s end due to the lawless behavior of inbound tourists.

Tourists spilling onto the roadway, entering private property, and getting lost in taking photos.

The iconic location featured in the opening scene of the anime adaptation of the legendary manga Slam Dunk, where the protagonist Hanamichi Sakuragi walks to school, is the “Kamakura High School” train station crossing on the Enoshima Electric Railway in Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture.

This place has become a holy land for the fans of the globally popular series, and the number of foreign tourists has surged. At the end of August, when a FRIDAY reporter visited the site, there were indeed large groups of inbound tourists—Asian visitors pulling huge suitcases and tour groups with Chinese-language flags—crowding the area.

While inbound tourism is said to stimulate the local economy, the residents around the Kamakura High School station are facing a serious tourism pollution that threatens their daily lives, rather than benefiting from the influx.

The most significant issue is the toilet problem. Originally, the number of toilets was woefully insufficient for the influx of tourists, leading to outdoor urination becoming a problem. From the end of April to late August, the toilets located outside the station’s ticket gates were closed due to blockages and damage.

As a result, tourists began to trespass onto private property to relieve themselves, further exacerbating the situation. The administrative director of a nearby hospital, Suzuki Hospital, voiced his frustration:

“Especially on Sundays, when staff are fewer, outdoor urination becomes rampant. When I arrive at work on Monday mornings and look around the hospital, I see feces in various hidden spots. It’s not just urine; human waste is often left behind.

I frequently get approached by tourists, mostly speaking Chinese, who desperately ask to use the toilet, but their behavior is extremely unsanitary. They even unplug the toilet’s power cord to charge their phones. Once, a woman came out of the restroom after changing into a wedding dress. I was speechless. Perhaps they were preparing for a photo shoot at the crossing.”

One local resident reported an astonishing sighting: “I saw a woman peeing while her friends tried to shield her in a parking lot along the coast.”

There have also been reports of tourists using delivery boxes in local apartment complexes as makeshift lockers or dumping broken suitcases illegally. The situation has become so bad that residents volunteer every morning to pick up the scattered garbage in the area.

A more direct threat to residents’ safety is the issue of illegal white taxis and traffic problems caused by foreign drivers. These drivers are said to park in private lots and wait for customers without permission. When confronted, they often react aggressively, using translation apps to retaliate. The majority of these drivers are said to speak Korean or Chinese.

On August 25, a middle school student was hit by a foreign driver in a hit-and-run incident. The boy’s father is outraged:

“When we told the driver to stop parking illegally, he refused. So my son called the police. The driver then suddenly moved his car and collided with my son’s bicycle, yelling ‘You’re in the way!’ in broken Japanese. He took a photo of my son on his smartphone and drove off. My son was deeply shocked.”

One local resident expressed, “Several families have had enough and moved away.”

When the Kamakura City Tourism Division was asked about the situation, they responded, “We are urgently working with related parties and agencies to address the immediate challenges at hand.”

The misdeeds of these troublesome tourists must not be allowed to continue.

From the September 12-19, 2025, issue of “FRIDAY”