WASHIMIYA, Japan -- For many years, Washinomiya Shrine has been a quiet place of worship, attracting just a trickle of sightseers to this sleepy town outside Tokyo. Then last summer, priests started noticing a new kind of visitor.

Young men, some clad in miniskirts, stockings and pastel-colored wigs, were lining up for photos at the shrine's vermilion gate. Over the big New Year's holiday in January, nearly 300,000 such visitors -- almost 10 times the town's population -- showed up, scores of them clad in outfits resembling schoolgirl uniforms.

Discerning fans had figured out that Washinomiya Shrine is regularly featured in "Lucky Star," a wildly popular animated comic that aired as a television series last year. Like the fans of other popular comics, Lucky Star's most ardent followers -- often men in their 20s and 30s -- demonstrate their commitment to the show by engaging in "costume play," or "cosplay," the popular pastime of dressing up as various characters.

Lucky Star's main characters are all female. "For us, this is a holy site," declared a young man named Shigeki Ito, strolling through the shrine one recent weekend in a wig of blue tresses, a red-and-white schoolgirl uniform and dark knee socks. The 20-something Tokyo office worker said dressing up as Konata, Lucky Star's easygoing main character, is "part of the experience." Accompanying him as Miyuki was friend Takashi Tanno, his pink wig slightly askew.

The unlikely attention lavished on this small town shows Japan's sometimes over-the-top obsession with anime, a style of animation that often features big-eyed characters delving into grown-up themes. Anime is one of Japan's hottest industries, expanding into blockbuster films, videogames, plastic figurines and fan fiction.