Lost Judgment: Isezaki Ijincho and the Real Yokohama

The game's Ijincho is a Yokohama downtown built around a station Sega calls 神内駅, and the real Kannai Station stands in for it. Yagami and Masaharu Kaito arrive here in December 2021 and walk toward the Yokohama 99 office; within a few streets they find Seiryo High students harassing a restaurant worker. Kannai opened on 9 May 1964 and handled 55,299 JR boardings a day in fiscal 2019, with the Negishi Line and the Blue Line running through it.

Visitor guidance: A working station; use the JR or subway concourse and exit toward Isezakichō.

The real Isezakichō is a 1.2 km shopping street running from 1-chōme to 7-chōme, roughly parallel to the Ōoka River. Only the 1-chōme and 2-chōme sections form Isezaki Mall, a car-free zone, and that pedestrian stretch becomes Isezaki Road in the game. The pedestrian zone became permanent in 1978. The land was reclaimed from a small bay filled between 1656 and 1667; Yurindo's main bookstore and a Fujiya restaurant are among its landmarks. Until the 1960s it was Yokohama's only large shopping area.

Visitor guidance: Walk the car-free mall from its northern end toward Kannai; the southern blocks continue as a normal shopping street.

Yagami goes to Chinatown to hear the bullying case from Chairman Okuda, and the meeting sets the main story in motion. Sega calls the district a famous sightseeing spot, but behind the main street lie the territories of the Chinese mafia Yokohama Liumang and the mysterious Komijul. The VR Salon Paradise has moved here from Kamurocho. The real Chinatown is Japan's largest, with roughly 250 Chinese-owned or themed shops and restaurants; Chinese settlers arrived after the port opened in 1859, a goodwill gate followed in 1955 and the Mazu Miao temple in 2006. The gate and the Mazu Miao temple are the landmarks to look for.

Location precision: District pin: the game's scenes are spread across Chinatown's streets.

Visitor guidance: A public street grid; eat and shop along the main lanes, and respect the temple grounds.

The game renames Yamashita Park Hamakita Park, and its skateboard group waits here for the School Stories races. The skate park itself is a converted warehouse in Yokohama. In reality the park opened on 15 March 1930, built on rubble from the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923 and reclaimed from the waterfront. The Hikawa Maru, a 1929 ocean liner, is now a museum ship, and the Ōsanbashi Pier has been in continuous operation since 1896. From the park the game shows the Minato Mirai 21 skyline, though that area is not part of the map.

Visitor guidance: A public waterfront park; the Hikawa Maru and Ōsanbashi Pier are a short walk away.

Sega's map keeps a Basha-kaidō, and the drone-race venue sits in a futsal court west of it; a batting centre stands along the coast nearby. The real Bashamichi opened in 1868 to link the Kannai area with the port, and its name comes from the foreign horse carriages that used it. Japan's first gas street lamps were lit along roughly 600 metres here in 1872, and Japan's first ice cream was made and sold on the street in 1869. Brick paving and working gas lamps still mark it today.

Visitor guidance: A public street between Kannai and Sakuragichō; look for the brick paving and gas lamps.