First Love 初恋 | 幌平橋 Horohira Bridge — Sunrise After Twenty Years

Morning reaches the Toyohira River before certainty reaches the people standing above it. In First Love 初恋, 野口也英 Noguchi Yae and 並木晴道 Namiki Harumichi watch the sunrise at 幌平橋 Horohira Bridge. The official Sapporo Film Commission location map identifies the bridge as the filming place, turning a familiar city crossing into one of the series’ quietest emotional thresholds. The series premiered on Netflix on 24 November 2022 and moves repeatedly between youth and adulthood. Here, the long horizontal view over the river lets those timelines seem to meet: traffic continues behind them, cold air holds the moment still, and the first light suggests that a life interrupted can still move forward. A visit near dawn best recalls the scene’s blue-to-gold transition, though Hokkaido weather can make the walkway icy or windswept. Horohira Bridge remains an active public route. Stay on the pedestrian path, allow room for walkers and cyclists, do not climb the structure, and avoid setting equipment where it narrows the crossing. The safest pilgrimage is also the most faithful one: pause, look east along the river, and let the city keep moving. Filming reference: Sapporo Film Commission, First Love 初恋 Sapporo Location Map. Photo: MIKI Yoshihito, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.