Morimi's Kyoto: Tatami Galaxy to Pontochō

The Tatami Galaxy begins in front of the university clock tower, where the unnamed narrator is handed club flyers. He is a Kyoto University student who entered college dreaming of a "rose-colored campus life". The Yoshida campus mixes historic brick buildings such as the Clock Tower Centennial Hall with modern research facilities. The novel names no building, so the pin marks the university.

Location precision: The novel mentions only a university clock tower; the pin marks Kyoto University's Yoshida campus.

Visitor guidance: The Yoshida campus is in Sakyo Ward; the Clock Tower Centennial Hall is one of its historic buildings.

The narrator lives in Shimogamo Yusuiso, a run-down boarding house where his four-and-a-half-mat room is number 110, with his friend Higuchi directly above in 210. The story takes its title from those tiny rooms: at the end the narrator finds himself in an endless universe of four-and-a-half mat tatami rooms. Yusuiso itself is invented. For the anime, it was modelled on Kyoto University's Yoshida Dormitory, so the pin marks that stand-in.

Location precision: Yusuiso exists only in the story; the pin marks the Yoshida Dormitory that the anime used as its model.

An old woman fortune teller turns up in every episode of the anime, almost always along Kiyamachi Street. In the novel her prediction is a single word: "Colosseo". On screen she raises her price by 1000 yen in each episode, so the narrator pays more every time he starts his college years over. The street is real and easy to walk, but the story never fixes her exact spot, so the pin marks the street rather than a stall.

Location precision: The fortune teller is placed on Kiyamachi Street without an exact spot; the pin marks the street.

Visitor guidance: Kiyamachi Street is an ordinary public street in central Kyoto.

Every timeline of The Tatami Galaxy ends the same way: the narrator and friends chase Ozu onto a bridge above the Kamo River Delta, a swarm of moths flies in, and Ozu falls into the Delta and breaks his leg. In the novel the moths gather on Kamo Ohashi bridge, right where the Takano and Kamo rivers meet. The riverbanks below are popular walking spots for residents and tourists.

Visitor guidance: A public riverside area where the Takano and Kamo rivers join.

In The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl, the kōhai, the black-haired heroine, wanders Pontochō alone in search of a drink. In a bar she meets Tōdō, Higuchi and Hanuki, and later beats the supernatural Rihaku in a drinking game. Morimi even ran Li Bai's tram through these narrow streets. Pontochō is a hanamachi district known for its geiko and maiko.

Location precision: The story names the district, not a bar; the pin marks Pontochō as a whole.

Visitor guidance: A public street district between the Kamo River and Kiyamachi.

At the Shimogamo summer used book festival in the shrine grounds, the senpai and the kōhai both hunt for a picture book from her childhood. Rihaku is hosting a contest for his rare books, but the God of Used Book Festivals interrupts it and sends all of Rihaku's books back to the stalls at reasonable prices. In The Tatami Galaxy, Akashi first meets the narrator at a Shimogamo Shrine book fair too. The shrine is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Visitor guidance: An open shrine in Sakyo Ward; the fair itself is a summer event.