So last time I covered most of the location itself. This time I’m aiming to cover a bit more about what exactly goes on at the school itself. Make sure to check out part 1 if you haven’t yet! How to get there: Well first things first, let me supply some directions to Toyosato Primary [...]
So last time I covered most of the location itself. This time I’m aiming to cover a bit more about what exactly goes on at the school itself. Make sure to check out part 1 if you haven’t yet!
How to get there:
Well first things first, let me supply some directions to Toyosato Primary School in case other people haven’t been clear enough on the subject already. The school is located in Toyosato, Shiga prefecture. Google maps location here.
Getting there is actually rather simple, but very time consuming and will set you back about 1,800 yen.
1. Get to Nagoya via your method of choice. Shinkansen, night bus, local train, express train, anything is fine.
2. Transfer to JR Tokaido Line or the JR東海道本線 heading towards Minoakasaka or 美濃赤坂.
3. After a 3o minute ride, get off at Ogaki or 大垣 and transfer to a train that goes towards towards Osaka or 大阪.
3. Get off at the station named Maibara or 米原.
4. Almost there, but not quite. Next, transfer to one of the most rickety looking rail services in Japan, the Ohmi rail. So sketchy, that they don’t even have enough staff to man all their stations. Their trains only come once an hour so if you miss, you’re out of luck.
The Ohmi rail
5. Finally, get off at Toyosato after another 20 minute ride. Congratulations, you’re there!
Middle of nowhere! Hell's yea!
What You May See There:
Depending on the time of day, the first thing that you may notice when you arrive is the atmosphere, an abundance of cosplayers, and a lot of otaku.
I think they're missing a person!
Cosplayers aplenty.
The school is BYOC. "Bring your own cosplayer", but alas I am a sneaky stalker.
Of course, where you have cosplayers, you also have creepy photographers.
I don't think I'll ever lie on the ground for the sake of a picture.
The girl you see in the bottom left of this picture pretty much exemplifies what most of the photographers there were like. They are extremely passionate about K-ON but will not cosplay themselves. They wait until a cosplayer of their favorite character shows up, promptly mob them, and start snapping shots (usually with permission). They’re usually well versed enough in the material that they sometimes even teach the cosplayers what poses would be ideal.
The Yui Maid Cafe serves as a gathering of otaku from all over Japan
In the above picture, you can see the guy trying to photograph a Ritsu nendroid, and some otakus showing each other their K-ON merchandise in the middle all while consuming some absolutely terrible and expensive, but K-ON themed food.
The town is also extremely invested in this whole K-ON business in an effort to milk the cow for what it’s worth. They even went so far as to replace all the signs for their crosswalks with K-ON characters.
Even the bread store is infected!
Also, plenty of Toyosato limited K-ON goods, but since I’m broke I settled for one of their keychains.
God the iPhone 4 camera is terrible.
I think that just about covers everything I saw in that day trip to Toyosato. I hope you enjoyed my coverage and come back for more! Also, do leave me comments if you can!
Final picture!
cool! Someday I wish to make a visit there too.
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How would you discribe the food?
I wonder what the town truly feels about all this. I mean, they’re probably happy for the revenue it brings, but is it like VW’s take on the American Beetle? i.e. “We hate this, but since it makes us good money, we won’t stop it.”
I don’t find the food particularly good. It’s nothing special. I think the town is just desperate for a new source of income. This town is in the middle of nowhere. If it weren’t for the K-ON! school, there’d be no reason to go there at all.
True, it sounds like a pain just getting there XD
I gotta say, those crossing signs really make me shudder for some reason. Especially Mugi’s o.o’
Fuck that man. You should eat before you get there, then you could at least use the money for the food to buy your k-on stuff instead.
Hello Brandy!!
Nice guide! I’ve been there twice now (thinking about a third visit lol) and was going to make one myself but I never got around to it! Have you been to some of the k-on places in Kyoto too? Like this one: http://omoshiroi.info/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=938 xD
The k-on school is apparently pretty famous just for being the building that it is, though. Like a heritage site or something.
Hey if you’re in Tokyo for ket drop me a line ^^
Ah crap, I totally didn’t see this post until it was too late. I left for Tokyo on the 26th and was without internet since.
Maybe next time? Or perhaps we can meet up for something else too.
Happy New Year! I’m still in Tokyo but I take it you’ve gone back already? Hmm, are you going to the k-on concert in February? Or any plans to attend any upcoming events? http://flic.kr/p/95wCoi some of the azunyan haul www
Nice haul. I didn’t know about the kon february concert because I want to go to mikus 39 giving day
We should trade contact details. If you go to summer ket I’m totally in. Also I drop by Tokyo a lot. Very nice azunyan loot. My azunyan doujin loot was pretty fail because of my approach, but show me around the doujin area on day 1
We definitely should! My e-mail address is blitzwing01 nospam at nospam yahoo.com
Send me an e-mail and we can swap contacts!
I’d love to go to that concert; too bad it’s on a Wednesday
I *should* be going to summer ket though, if I can get the time off =D
Someday, I will visit that place..