"Love Live! Sunshine!!" tells the story of Aqours, a school idol group formed at a school in the Uchiura district of Numazu. The first season of the TV anime aired in July 2016, and Aqours serves as Numazu's official PR ambassadors. The seaside cafe I visited was decorated with posters from the series.
Sources: numazukanko.jp b-ch.com thetv.jp city.numazu.shizuoka.jp
This moment in the journey
Lunch at a cafe straight out of an anime
For lunch I went to a cafe on the shore. A Nordic flag fluttered beside a sign reading "Umi no Stage." Numazu is also the setting of a popular anime: posters hung inside, and characters were drawn on the whiteboard by the door.
What arrived was a plate of yellow pilaf under a rich brown sauce and crispy fried onions. Lunch in an anime-like setting. Tasty, and happy. Through the shade of the garden, past a white table, the sea opened out.
Watch this scene on YouTube2:19
More notes from this journey
Numazu, Shizuoka
Rice-ball bento in bamboo sheath
I wrapped freshly made rice balls in bamboo sheath with rolled omelet and pickled cucumber and carried them down to the water.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
The Numazu special: nigiri and gunkan sushi
Numazu Port is where the fish of Suruga Bay come ashore, with a street of restaurants serving seafood fresh off the boats.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Awashima Island
A small island in Suruga Bay at the boundary of Uchiura Bay and Enoura Bay.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Suruga Bay
Japan's deepest bay, reaching 2,500 meters at its deepest point.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Numazu Port
The port where the bounty of Suruga Bay comes ashore.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Numazu's dried horse mackerel
Shizuoka produces more salted and dried horse mackerel than any other prefecture: 9,369 tons in 2021, or 42% of the national total, mainly from Numazu, Atami an…
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
More notes from Tokai
Numazu, Shizuoka
Numazu bowl (Numazu-don)
Numazu-don is a local specialty born at a Numazu bowl contest in 2000: rice cooked with dried horse mackerel, topped with raw whitebait, raw sakura shrimp and c…
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Sakura shrimp kakiage
Every sakura shrimp landed in Japan comes from Suruga Bay.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Horse mackerel chazuke
The half of the chopped horse mackerel I had set aside while making the Numazu bowl spent the night in soy sauce and became the next morning's chazuke.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Rice cooked over a kamado
In this house the tiled kamado is still in daily use.
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Satsuki's lunch box
A recreation of the lunch Satsuki gets up early to make in My Neighbor Totoro: rice cooked over a kamado, grilled dried sardines, green peas, pink sakura denbu…
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Wild boar hot pot over the hearth
Most of Hamamatsu's Tenryu Ward is forest, and the Tenryu Gibier Fes, a festival of wild game, is held in Futamata (its fifth edition was in May 2025).
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky