When Otaku Invade!

 Editorial by Bocchan, J-Subculture staff

The line between the world of Otaku-dom and the so-called real world can get pretty blurry sometimes. After all, not all Japanese otaku keep their hobbies to themselves; they walk around in public cosplay, visit maid cafes and anime-themed bars, and of course attend conventions, where everyone gets a day-pass to be as weird as they want. But then there are cases where the real world invades the world of anime, opening a kind of void where the world of anime comes rushing right back into ours.

I think this is actually in Fukuoka.

The creator of Lucky Star, Kagami Yoshimitsu, wanted to set the sleepy, down-to-earth story in his hometown of Kasukabe, Saitama prefecture. Most of the places appearing the series (like the girls’ high school, Kasukabe Station&etc.) exist in real life. But things take a turn for the strange with the case of Washinomiya Shrine.

Located just north of Kasukabe, Washinomiya is an ancient and respectable place of worship in its own right. But when the intro of Lucky Star featured Hiiragi Kagami doing her funky little strut down the approach to the shrine, its real-life counterpart was invaded by an army of otaku. They parked their anime-themed cars and even bicycles (“itasha,” or painmobiles) in the parking lot, and covered the shrine’s wooden prayer plaques with illustrations, some extremely good, of their favorite Lucky Star girls.

I've been to Washinomiya twice; I took my own pictures! I'm just using others' because I'm too lazy to bring my camera to work.

That's a mikoshi, a miniature portable shrine. The rest is harder to explain.

Locals reacted in various ways, but eventually seemed to agree that anything bringing tourists to the remote rural area had to be welcomed. Today the town of Washinomiya flies its freak flag high from every lamppost (literally):

Somewhat more disturbing is the case of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Boredom-addled demigodess Haruhi and her friends attend “North High;” with such a generic name, surely it was made up for the series?

But Nishinomiya North is a very real high school in the town of Nishinomiya near Kobe, and it wasn’t long before some astute observers noticed the similarities. The school was been suffering unwanted attention, people sneaking in claiming to need the bathroom, and even break-ins ever since. The obvious solution would be to move the school and turn the building into a Haruhi museum or something, don’t you think?