“You see, they also got married.”

Many movies and dramas film in Shimoyoshida because of its retro townscape. It’s known as the filming location for the TV drama “I Can Hear the Festival” and the 2010 live-action movie "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time."

Do you know what else these two productions have in common? In fact, the lead actors in both productions met their significant other here while on set.

The approach leading to this shrine appears in one scene of "I Can Hear the Festival." It’s here where Kenichi Hagiwara and Ayumi Ishida exchanged words on the cobblestone approach that stretched straight across the bridge from the shrine.

It’s on this road where you can find a cherry blossom tree with a bump on its trunk perfectly shaped like a heart, and it’s on the grounds of the shrine where you can find a katsura tree variety that grows heart-shaped leaves. With signs like these, what else do you call this shrine but a matchmaking shrine?

The shopping street where real-life couple Riisa Naka and Akiyoshi Nakao, who slipped back in time in the movie "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time", met is right next to this shrine's entrance. People say that this is a "matchmaking" shrine.

However, there is another theory held by a man who was an extra featured in both productions. He boasts, “Maybe I have the power of matchmaking, not the shrine.”

So if you’re looking for the love of your life, you could visit this temple, or you could try searching for this mystery man…

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