Editorial policy

Every page on AnimeTrails is published under the byline AnimeTrails Editorial. This page explains what that means: where our facts come from, how we use AI, how we correct mistakes, and how we earn money. For what the site is, see About.

How we research

  • We only list places where the link to the series is published by an official party (the creator, studio, publisher, local government, tourism board), or where an official statue, museum or collaboration facility stands on site. Fan reports are labeled as such, with wording like "fans say".
  • Locations, hours, tickets and events come from official pages: local governments, tourism boards, operators of each place, and the official sites of each series. Every route and every place page keeps the pages it was checked against, and the date of the check.
  • We list public places, facilities and shrine grounds only. We do not publish homes, private land or school grounds.
  • Fares, walking times and opening hours are given as approximate, and we do not publish a figure we cannot find in a source.
  • We do not use anime artwork, screenshots or official logos. Photos show the real place and come from Wikimedia Commons under the license shown; each is credited.
  • We check the source links on a schedule. When an official page disappears or says an exhibition has ended, we flag the page or take it down.

How we use AI

We use AI tools to help draft and organize routes and place pages. The AI works from facts we collected from the official sources above; it is not a source. A checking program then compares each draft with those sources: a figure (a fare, a walking time, an opening hour) that does not appear in a source is rejected, and so is a page whose sources no longer open. The site is reviewed by a person every week, and a person can take any page down.

We do not write first-hand reviews and do not claim to have visited a place ourselves. Photos are never generated or altered by AI; they are real photographs of the real place (we only resize them for the web).

Corrections

Times, fares and exhibitions change. If you find something wrong or out of date, please tell us through the contact page. We check the report against the official source, fix the page, and update the date shown on it. If a place asks us to remove or change its listing, we do.

Manners and overtourism

Many places sit among ordinary streets, shrines and shops where people live and work. We choose public places, say when a spot is small, quiet or easy to overwhelm, and remind readers to keep their voices down, stay off private property, follow photography signs, take their trash home and spend locally. We would rather leave a place off the site than send crowds to somewhere that cannot take them.

How we earn money

Some pages contain affiliate links (marked “Partner link”). If you book through one of them we get a commission, at no extra cost to you. Links without that mark earn us nothing. Partners such as Klook (activities and tickets) and hotel booking sites may pay us a commission when you book through a marked link. Commissions do not decide which places we list or how we describe them. We are not paid by any studio, publisher or rights holder and are not affiliated with them.

Independence

AnimeTrails is an independent, fan-made project. It is written under the AnimeTrails Editorial byline rather than a personal name. Every claim on the site is meant to be checkable against the sources listed on the page, not against who wrote it.

Questions or corrections: contact@animetrails.com. See also Privacy Policy.