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Lucky Star: Washinomiya and Kasukabe

Lucky Star is set in Saitama, north of Tokyo, and its anime borrows real places: Washinomiya Shrine in Kuki, Kasukabe Station, the Gongendo embankment in Satte and Akihabara.

Mapped by Mapped Chronicles editors5 locationsCountries: JapanCities: TokyoGPX

#washinomiya#anime-pilgrimage#akihabara#lucky-star#saitama

Timeline & locations

What do the location labels mean?
Exact
The pin marks the actual place where it happened or was filmed.
Approximate
The right area — a town, park or district — but not a precise spot.

  1. Konata, one of the four schoolgirls, lives in Satte, Saitama, according to Newtype's 2007 feature on the anime's locales, and the anime borrows Satte and the Gongendo embankment as motifs for her neighbourhood. Creator Kagami Yoshimizu was born here. Gongendo Tsutsumi is a levee about 1 km long, lined with roughly 1,000 Yoshino cherry trees. The pin marks the embankment; the exact streets of Konata's home are not given.

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    Location precision: The sources name Satte and the embankment as motifs, not a single house; the pin marks Gongendo Tsutsumi.

    Visitor guidance: The cherry-blossom levee is a public walk.

    Sources

  2. Kasukabe is the setting of Lucky Star, and the anime's railway station is modelled on Tobu Railway's Kasukabe Station, a junction station on the Tobu lines. The girls' school takes the creator's own school in Kasukabe as its model. Kasukabe Station is still a working Tobu junction, and the pin marks it rather than the school.

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    Location precision: The anime's station and school are modelled on Kasukabe places; the pin marks Kasukabe Station, not the school.

    Visitor guidance: Kasukabe Station is a public Tobu Railway junction station.

    Sources

  3. In the anime the Hiiragi sisters, Kagami and Tsukasa, work as shrine maidens at the Takanomiya Shrine; the real model is Washinomiya Shrine in Kuki, whose torii appears in the opening sequence. After Newtype's 2007 feature, fans flooded in to photograph scenes, and left ema plaques covered in anime drawings. Since 2008 fans have helped carry a Lucky Star mikoshi at the Hajisai festival. The shrine itself is one of the oldest in the Kanto region.

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    Visitor guidance: Washinomiya Shrine is an active shrine; behave as at any place of worship.

    Sources

  4. In episode 16 the cast head to Akihabara, drawn in the anime as 'Akiba-bara', with its station renamed too. Konata's part-time job is at a cosplay café there. Real Akihabara is considered by many to be the centre of Japanese otaku culture, with video-game, anime and manga shops, maid cafés and arcades. The pin marks Akihabara Station, not a particular café.

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    Location precision: The anime shows a fictional café in a renamed Akihabara; the pin marks Akihabara Station.

    Visitor guidance: Akihabara is an open shopping district around Akihabara Station.

    Sources

  5. The anime uses Tokyo Big Sight, Japan's largest convention venue, as a setting. It sits on the shore of Tokyo Bay, about 30 minutes by rail from Tokyo Station, and has hosted the Comiket convention since 1996, which makes it a fitting final stop for a fandom tour.

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    Sources

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