Toyosato Elementary School

Sun 2012/04/01 17:30 UTC  |  Travel

Fabrice Requin

Hello and welcome to my blog. This blog is considered my haven when everything...

I like anime and that’s a fact, I would even go as far as visiting the real-life setting where it appears in the anime. Today I would like to show you around the famous Toyosato Elementary School or also known as Sakuragaoka High School where most of you may know, is the main setting of K-ON!

First here’s a little history about the school:

Toyosato Elementary School was first established in 1873, and the old building was constructed in 1937 following the designs of William Merrell Vories with the intent of modernizing the neighborhood of Toyosato.

In 2004, the school decided to move to a new building, and the old building was scheduled to be dismantled. However, with the townspeople recognizing the school building as the town’s symbol of sorts, they initiated a plan to save the school building from being demolished. The movement became successful, and the school remains standing up to the present, although selected areas of the school is recommended to be off-limits due to its old age. – From K-ON! wikia

The new school is right behind the old one, So you will definitely see it when you visit. While your visiting the school you feel as if Yui, Mio, Ritsu, Tusumugi, Azusa and the rest actually exist, Kyoto Animation’s pursuit for details has surely paid off. Almost every background images in the anime are nearly entirely modeled after the places and buildings, so you can actually visit there and re-experience the same story as did the girls. The folks there are so kind and open to anyone, they even cater for them which is another bonus.

One recommendation is to bring a camera with plenty of memory available because youll be clicking away that’s for sure! Anyway enjoy our tour of Sakuragaoka High School!
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Toyosato Elementary School is located in the Shiga Prefecture and is around 20 minutes walk from the Toyosato Station. You should visit it when you are there, another to the list of sites to visit in Japan, how wonderful. From JR Hikone Station, take Ohmi Line. It takes 17 minutes. Ohmi line costs 400 yen one way. Very expensive, but worth taking. The school was renovated to reinforce against earthquakes, installed with an elevator, and preserved as much as possible. You fans have probably seen this a million times, seeing it in reality is something else! The beautiful “citizen” clock which makes the building have this western touch. The statue of Furukawa Tetsujiro where in the anime was regularly dressed up by the K-ON! girls, the man who donated his own money to build the school back in 1937, so we should thank him a lot! A picture of appreciation, we decided to add my friends scarf, A little K-ON! feeling. Made our way to the main entrance, excitement were sky high! Beautiful fountain with a statue of a fish or carp in front of the entrance of the school. There are quite a few of visitors looking at the number of shoes. No security guard compared to the anime, actually there wasnt anyone there. The map of the complex, there are 3 floors in this building The corridor of the ground floor K-ON! posters up on the walls as you make your way through the building. On the ground floor, you still have the rooms which were preserved, it seems like its still being use as there many things lying around like computers, This is also were Sawako sensei and the rest were when the Girls came to see her especially Yui enquiring about the Music Club. Suprisingly there was a little canteen where that lady was selling K-ON! related food, we obviously had to try something! Past the canteen you find yourself in front of this, called the conqueror rump, im not sure what this machine was used for, but it had to do with the American architect of this school, William Merrell Vories. The stairs leading to the second floor with the rabbit and turtoise sculpture on the railing. This rabbit and turtle sculpture represents the famous and classic Aesops fable, the race between the turtle and hare. Do you remember who won? On the 2nd floor, this classroom has been reconstructed to look like what it was before. Could this be one of the class of the girls? well definitely yes since the second floor is where most of the class are. Making our way to the final and 3rd floor! As you make your way up youll encounter the Light Music Clubroom where the girls jammed out and where most of their memories were created. That was quite funny seeing this, its Sawako sensei who added this in the entrance of the club to make it look better. The entrance to the Club room!!! Just as pictured in the anime, when we entered the room, all the flashbacks began to appear from the series. Welcome to the Light Music Club room where the 5 girls along with Sawako sensei spent most of their time after class. which was then filled with people in a matter of seconds. The famous table(s) where the girls sat and had delicious delights from Tsumugi! A closer view of the table. Time to have some tea! One girl was re-arranging the cups and plates. In order to have their picture taken! It was nice what they did and they sure fitted in well! Wibi and I had to do the same, Mhmm that cake looks nice! The Board filled with loads of messages from visiting fans such as that little girl, Its something you would have to do that is if there is any space left! Found a space to write something! Wibi too found space to leave a message. Hard to find ours but mine is next to the big heart on the bottom right, whereas Wibi’s is somewhere near the big 80. You can see that not only Japanese came here, I even spotted Thai(or something like that) writing, the big yellow and red one. Making our way around, there is Tsumugi’s Piano! well its not like the one in the series but who cares, theoretically its Tsumugi’s piano ^^, the scores you see are even the ones for K-ON! Ton-chan! wow thats a scary Ton-chan lol Miscellaneous goods brought by fans, as well as these two guitars! Miscellaneous goods brought by fans. That’s another thing what i find cool about this place, its filled with goodies donated by loyal fans. Time for some Jamming or Yui time! Cagayake Boys.. i mean girls.. lol Time for some Mio time! Dont say Lazy! even thought its not a bass.. but its looks like it. The girls shoes with their names written above them. Haha I remember that fan! In one of the episodes, the summer heat for draining the girls. They decided to make use of this type of fan until well broke with the thing flying out! it was dangerous, The girls then added a something so make it may rest in peace. Another board where you can put a message, as usual it was filled up! Here you have journals where again fans can write inside, we left a little message, there was also a card holder booklet for those who has Meishi’s (business cards) unfortunately i didnt have any’ I forgot the name of that but im sure you guys remember that part where Yui was deciding which instrument to pick up.. this was one of the options. You have another door next to the table with the journals which is the storage room. Here you have the set of clothes Sawako sensei had so that she could dress the girls up, she had weird ideas! Then you have a cupboard which was placed in the room. One of many difference from the anime. However fans made sure to fill it with Tsumugi’s tea cups. There are also original Autographs from the Voice actress along with the creator of the series Kalifly. Its nice to see that fans respect the place and dont steal such as those autographs. Out of the clubroom, you had another room which is most of you may remember in the scene where Mio sang “Pure Pure Heart”. There was a band at that time playing K-ON! music, It was quite entertaining, the crowd was singing along. The girl singing well from what I think didnt know any of the lyrics.. I felt as if her boyfriend forced her to sing along lol. A view from the window overlooking the entrance of the school as we made our way back down A view of the old school’s auditorium Going to visit the old school’s library Also known as the K-ON! cafe! Here you had the chance to purchase some souvenirs of both the school and K-ON! related items. Further, youll see LOADS of K-ON! goodies on display which were donated by the loyal fans, In order for K-ON! to take over the building haha. Across you had again an area dedicated to K-ON! where tons of variety you can find, from figures to cd;s, DVD, plushies, instrument, Dakimakura and more. You can even find the Houses of the Girls being reconstructed! The front desk of the old library which is now the K-ON! Cafe They offered to everyone K-ON! snacks, you could even order a meal from the menu but it was shut when we came, nevertheless we already had our Bento we bought in the school. Called the Ton-chan’s Bento Box! sounds wonderful and apparently it is the most popular. NOM NOM NOM! it was DELICIOUS! A view from above, It was nice and relaxing, they were playing K-ON! music in the background and had heaters, gosh I could stay in there for ages! After an hour of looking inside the library and had a quick break we headed out, heres a view facing the school. Direction, the auditorium! where the K-ON! girls performed various times to the school. Looks nearly a splitting image from what we see in the anime, kyoto animations sure did a good job! Me being shy before performing..some certain Mio.. A view from the stage where the audience was cheering on the girls! Or where they were seated like me for school assembly. There you go! hopefully you enjoyed the pictures, hopefully it brough you flashbacks and memories from the series, I know we certainly had a wonderful time re-enacting the series! ? Pictures taken back in Novemeber 2011.

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Fabrice is a blogger, full time university student, web enthusiast and founder of Fateful Encounters.. This blog is his final haven when everything seems nuisances; urging him to assess and to share his thoughts and his own findings to the world, or at least to his fellow neighbors in the blog sphere.