Natsume Soseki

Walk Sanshiro's own route onto the University of Tokyo's Hongo campus — through the gate the novel names outright, to the pond that now carries its title character's name.

Trace the real hot-spring village behind Natsume Soseki's Kusamakura — a remote corner of Kumamoto Prefecture where a Meiji-era villa, its mirror pond, and an old mountain road still match the novel almost exactly.

Trace the real beach where Kokoro's narrator meets Sensei and the Tokyo cemetery where the novel's saddest chapters play out — the same cemetery where Natsume Soseki himself is buried.

Trace the real house, neighborhood, and even the actual cat's grave behind Natsume Soseki's I Am a Cat — from a quiet Tokyo backstreet to a relocated Meiji-era house 300km away in Aichi Prefecture.

Trace the real Matsuyama locations behind Natsume Soseki's comic novel Botchan — from the bathhouse he barely disguised in fiction to the schoolyard where he actually taught — with practical travel notes for visiting Shikoku.