In my YA fantasy standalone novel, Son of the Siren, many of the locations I’ve been to when I lived in Japan pop up in the book! And the biggest thing I’m all about are the forests…

Fairy tales and forests go hand in hand, and the most magical forest I’ve ever been to is on the island of Yakushima, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. I went there November 2018 and it marked my first major solo trip in Japan, where I drove from Kumamoto prefecture down to Kagoshima, spent the night in my first capsule hotel, got up and put my car on the ferry, and drove to my hostel once I got to the island. Then it was nothing but hiking!

I always wanted to hike on Yakushima because the forests there served as the inspiration for the beautiful woods in Princess Mononoke (Studio Ghibli, 1997).

I’d seen countless photos of a specific forest, Shiratani Unsuikyo, which is the exact location animators sourced for the film. On this English map, the spot you want to look for is the “moss-covered forest” to get a real sense of what it feels like to stand in a magical place. That’s the part that looks the most like Princess Mononoke.

I was scared to hike solo. I had lost a lot of weight moving to Japan, but I was still mostly sedentary and was worried about how out of breath I would be hiking. I chose to hike alone because I knew I needed to set my own pace, and I always walk slower than everyone else. Plus, I wanted to take a zillion photos. As I walked, I stopped every few steps to recalibrate myself, and to snap a pic. What was supposed to have been a four-hour hike turned into six hours, and I stopped before reaching Taikoiwa Rock because the trail went really vertical again and my knees said, “nope.”

But I took some stunning pictures. Here’s my favorite:

And another one, very similar, but from a different angle:

In Son of the Siren, one of the major forests in the book is Yanna. It’s so big it covers two countries: Asherin, and Léandor. If the forest is particularly dark, misty, mysterious, and thick, you are in Léandor. If the woods lighten up and the cedar trees thin out due to logging and the topography beginning to change, you’re in Asherin.

There are two major forest parks in Yakushima. If I was going to choose one for Léandor, I’d say Shiratani Unsuikyo would be the inspiration for the forest there. The other forest park, Yakusugi Land, would be the inspiration for the parts of Yanna that grow in Asherin.

And yes, I did go to Yakusugi Land when I went to Yakushima. It was my second day of hiking. I was relieved because my muscles were sore from the day before (6 hours of walking!) and a lot of the paths I took in the woods were covered trails. Plus, there were so many monkeys that made the trip delightful!

Anyway, a lot of cedar logging was done on Yakushima island and there’s still signs from when they did it ages ago. These random spots that show traces of civilization inspired the Asherin side of the forest:

Basically, I wanted Yanna to be a forest that was haunting, beautiful, and primeval, and when I thought of forests for Son of the Siren, the woods on Yakushima immediately popped into my head.

Yakushima is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to, and I felt like such an independent, grown woman for travelling and hiking there by myself. It is one of my most memorable trips from Japan, and I knew I had to immortalize my memories of it not just in pictures, but in my writing, too.