Rachelle MEILLEUR    Department   Kyoto University of Foreign Studies  Department of British and American Studies, Faculty of Foreign Studies    Position   Associate Professor
Date	2019/04/25
Presentation Theme	An Uneasy Truth: Dealing with the "Thrill" of the Dark in Japan
Conference	Thrill of the Dark: Heritages of Fear, Fascination and Fantasy
Conference Type	International
Presentation Type	Speech (General)
Contribution Type	Individual
Publisher and common publisher	Rachelle Meilleur
Details	The thrill of visiting perceived dark places is nothing new - cemeteries, battlefields, natural and manmade disaster areas, in addition to many others, have attracted visitors for centuries. However, with the rise of social media focusing on dark tourism, the number of people visiting these types of sites has been increasing year by year. As numbers increase, many places are forced to deal with visitor numbers that they have not anticipated for; and have had to deal with visitors who are there for the thrill and not necessarily because they have a meaningful reason to visit. This presentation discussed and evaluated various dark places in Japan, both known and unknown, their attractiveness (or not) to both international and domestic visitors, and the implications it has for both the acceptance and the reconciliation of a complex past that many may prefer to forget.