あまちゃん (Amachan) | 久慈駅前ビル Kuji Station-Front Building — Meetings Above the Taxi Rank

The future of 北三陸 is argued out upstairs while taxis wait below. In あまちゃん (Amachan), the weathered 久慈駅前ビル Kuji Station-Front Building stands in for the home of the 北三陸観光協会, where Daikichi, Sugawara, and their neighbors turn local worries into improbable plans. The association’s office was a dramatic setting rather than a visitor facility, but the exterior is unmistakable: the old department-store lettering, the taxi rank, and the large signs for 北の海女, 北三陸鉄道, and 潮騒のメモリー compress the town’s fictional identity into one façade. Kuji City still identifies the building as an official photo spot, so the best visit is from the public station square; admire the signs from outside and do not enter unmarked or private parts of the building. The comic meetings happened above street level, yet the memory of them begins with the ordinary line of taxis at the curb. Photo: くろふね, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.