The Tokyo International Anime Fair is surely going global.

The fair, which opened to the public Saturday at Tokyo Big Sight for a two-day run, marked a record number 79 foreign companies participating this year in its seventh year.

Iga Tetsudo, which took over the running of the old Kintetsu Iga Line in October last year, is making the offer as part of the Iga Ueno Ninja Festa, a festival that celebrates the Mie Prefecture city's links with the ancient stealth art of ninjutsu.

Home to Japan's aboriginal Ainu race, Hokkaido continues to represent the untamed wilderness with many great National Parks. For many visitors the scenery resembles northern Europe, with rice paddies and concrete warrens replaced by rolling fields and faux-German cottages.

Hokkaido is by far Japan's largest prefecture, consisting of Japan's entire northern island and its surrounding islets. Hokkaido is cooler than the rest of Japan, and the merciful lack of Japan's muggy summers and rainy season makes it a very popular domestic destination between May and August. Some of Hokkaido's inland areas have a continental climate, with large daily and yearly temperature variation.

Most of Hokkaido was settled by the Japanese within the last 100 years, compared to the thousands of years of Japanese history and pre-history. As a result, its architecture and cities are much more modern, and mostly based on western-like grid layouts.

(Daisetsuzan-kokuritsukoen, also pronounced Taisetsuzan) is located in the mountainous center of the island of Hokkaido.　At 2267.64 square kilometers, Daisetsuzan is the largest national park in Japan. The name means Great Snowy Mountain, an apt description of these peaks - 15 of them over 2000 meters - that offer some of the most rugged hiking in Japan. The Ainu name for Daisetsuzan, kamui-mintara, translates to "playground of the gods"