Gotham and Japanese city in friendship agreement
Fukuyama and the fictional hometown of Batman share love for nocturnal mammal
Superhero Batman’s hometown Gotham City has for the first time concluded a friendship city agreement with Fukuyama, a castle town in western Japan, as the fictional and real cities share a connection – their love for bats.
The unique agreement was struck late last month, ahead of the release of Warner Bros film The Batman on Friday in Japan, and as Fukuyama celebrates the 400th year of its castle’s history.
The city in Hiroshima prefecture, known for its emblem resembling a flying bat, had proposed the friendship accord to the entertainment company’s Japanese unit, Warner Bros Japan LLC, as a newly renovated Fukuyama Castle opens to the public in August.
Known globally through comics and films, Batman is a billionaire playboy by day and a crime-busting hero by night. Donning a bat costume to fight for justice in the crime-riddled city, he swoops into Gotham when ever its distressed people call him by lighting up the sky with a “bat signal”.
Fukuyama’s name and emblem are derived from Bat Mountain, an old name of the hill on which its castle rests.
With the bat symbolising luck in China, by which Japanese culture has been much influenced, the city created its name by combining the Chinese characters for “luck” pronounced fuku in Japanese and “mountain”, or yama.
The design of the city emblem launched in 1917 was based on the Chinese character for “mountain” being modified to look like a flying bat.
“Batman is a popular franchise all over the world. It is an honour that a local city in Japan is connected to it,” said Shingo Watanabe, who oversees projects at the city hall to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Fukuyama Castle’s founding.
To celebrate the connection between the two cities, Fukuyama is implementing various projects this month, including free commemorative stickers and shining a bat signal on a building. There are also a host of visual images created to mark the friendship agreement with one saying, “Saving cities, connecting histories” as a shadowy Batman stands in front of the famous castle at sunset.