Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
ANIMATED
A B&B in the Cotswolds has become a surprise top Japanese tourist destination – after it featured in a hit anime TV series.
Caron Cooper, 60, has been running the two-bedroom guesthouse on her farm for more than 30 years.
It shot to fame 5,000 miles away after the creators of the Kinmoza anime (animated) series featured Fosse Farmhouse and based a character on Caron.
She is now overrun with guests from the Far East, who are desperate to stay in the famous house.
Caron has attended a red-carpet premiere in Japan and even dined with – and hosted – the Japanese royal family.
She has a Japanese fanbase of 5.5 million people, who are obsessed with her B&B in sleepy Castle Combe, Wilts.
The unlikely link with Japan began after a chance meeting with a Japanese couple at a market stall in 1989. Shozo and Yasuko Mitani mentioned they were opening a British-themed B&B in Japan, so Caron invited them to visit her farmhouse. They loved it so much, they modelled their own B&B on it.
She began to receive an increasing number of Japanese visitors and the business featured in magazines there and on TV, and in a campaign to attract Japanese tourists to the UK.
Caron was then invited by the British Embassy to make tea and scones for the Japanese royal family at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. In 1994, she returned the favour by hosting the royal family for three nights. Now she has become a celebrity after the house in Kinmoza – which has its own comics, TV show and film – was based on her home. It even features a copy of her Morris Minor car.
The main character is called Alice and her mum, Mrs Cartelet, is based on Caron. Caron said: “This is the last thing I ever dreamt would happen to me – I just own a little B&B in the countryside.”