Kokura City is one of the five cities in Kitakyushu, and if you exit JR Hakata Station and take the JR Sanyo Shinkansen, it will take about 20 minutes to JR Kokura Station.

One of the reasons I came here this time is to shoot a manhole with the theme of Reiji Matsumoto’s works such as the anime “Galaxy Express 999”.
The other is the Kitakyushu Manga Museum, which opened in 2012 near JR Kokura Station. It is located in a ”ARUARU City” that is about a 3-minute walk from the JR Kokura Station Shinkansen exit. The entrance is to the 2nd floor.

Kitakyushu Manga Museum

＞Kitakyushu Manga Museum Official Site

This is a large mall selling peripheral products such as anime, manga, and figures.

Exhibition events are also held irregularly. On the 6th floor, there is about 50,000 freely read manga areas, including Tsukasa Hojo “City Hunter”, Ako Mutsu, Masazo Watase, Reiji Matsumoto “Space Battleship Yamato” and “Galaxy Express 999”. There are many works of.

Reiji Matsumoto is a Kitakyushu manga artist whose representative works include Space Battleship Yamato, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, and Galaxy Express 999. In 2018, which marked the 100th anniversary of the Kitakyushu City Sewerage Business, they arranged a total of 9 manholes with the theme of “Galaxy Express 999” from Kokura Station to Kokura City.
We rented a hotel near here to facilitate these manhole tours. The hotel is directly connected to the Manga Museum and can be walked directly from the hotel.

RIHGA Royal Hotel Kokura

＞RIHGA Royal Hotel Ogura official site

The time of this trip was November 2019, and the weather was just right. Walking is necessary to find the desired manhole, be careful if it is too hot. Now let’s see how to find these manholes.

You can usually see the location of the manhole by looking at the map, but when I actually arrive at the site, I sometimes make a mistake on the road because of my lack of geographical knowledge. It may be easier to find it by asking someone. However, since I can’t speak Japanese, I have no choice but to rely on smartphone navigation and body language. I would be happy if I could find all the manholes at once, and if I couldn’t, I would go again. This is also a pleasure for traveling.
This time, one manhole was never found. To be exact, it disappeared. Why do I think so? Probably the cause is that there are regular inspections on the manhole, and there are manholes that are placed only when it is necessary to replace a damaged item or on a special day or time.

We will share this exploration trip to save time and energy for the same manhole lovers. First of all, it is relatively easy to find No. 1 to 6 on the map. You can find it as soon as you look at the direction and rely on the smartphone navigation.
The first manhole is located at the JR Kokura Station exit of the Manga Museum.

And the second one was not found. I saw an ordinary manhole in the same position. I later checked the position repeatedly and it must be here. I can’t help it, so I gave up and went looking for another. Numbers 2 to 6 are located in the central shopping district of Kokura.

Kokura Chuo Shopping Street is on the right side of the Kokura Station South Exit. As you enter along the entrance to the mall, you’ll instantly find numbers 3-6 according to the map icon.

Next, the 7th manhole is located on Katsuyama Street near the Fukuoka Bank Kokura Branch and can be found if the bank is found.

The 8th and 9th manholes are across the Katsuyama Bridge, and the 8th is on the left.

If you head to the Kitakyushu Arts Theater from there, there is the 9th manhole, but the 9th is not a manga character, but the author’s cat, Reiji Matsumoto.

We hope that this article will be useful to you thay can safely shoot a set of manholes with the theme of Reiji Matsumoto such as “Galaxy Express 999”!