Washinomiya, or ZOMG Lucky Star is Real!
Posted by 0rion on August 21st, 2007 - 11:03 pm
Otaku invade Washinomiya-jinja, home of the Hiiragi Twins
This is kind of old news, but it seems like a number of people haven’t seen this yet, so I thought I’d mention it here.
As you may know, the setting for Lucky Star is in Japan’s Saitama prefecture. What you may not realize is just how closely the show matches reality. In fact, the locations that appear in the show for the most part actually exist, and are strikingly similar to their real life counterparts.
Lucky Star is set in the real life town of Washimiya in southern Saitama, and many of the town’s locations are featured in the show, most notably the venerable Washinomiya-jinja, which appears in the opening credits.
Hakase’s site Small Love has a nice set of comparison shots between various scenes in the show and photographs of the real town.
On another interesting note, the Japanese Wikipedia article for Washinomiya-jinja has apparently been semi-protected due to vandalism and edit wars, which looks to be largely due to otaku trying to add lots of Lucky Star crap to the page. Apparently even Japanese Anonymous has been busy. Right now the article just has a single line at the bottom tersely noting that the shrine appears in the show.
Gotta love the cosplayers and all the fanart drawn on those ema (the little wooden votive plaques) by the visiting otaku. One interesting thing that stuck out to me was when they interviewed the head priest toward the end of the video. When asked what he thought about all the otaku coming out to shrine, he said that they were all worshipping respectfully, so he didn’t mind them as long as they did that properly.
Also, if anyone reading this has better Japanese than I, I’m trying to figure out the meaning of these kanji that appear on the ema here. It looks like 女家, which I know are the kanji for woman and house, respectively. I have no idea what meaning it takes in this situation, though. Also, note the choco cornet in the corner. 
Source: Tentative Name
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The one on the left reads as “Tsukasa is my wife” if I’m not mistaken, also lol @ your observation, because house + woman = wife does make sense. The one on the right reads as “Kona-chan *pant pant*” and “Chocolate cornet!” respectively, from top to bottom. Hilarious stuff.
Also, allow me to link you to Zyl’s Lucky Star pilgrimage, which I’m pretty sure you’ll find enlightening. Similar stuff to be found there, etc.
@Owen S
Yeah, I was pretty sure it was something like that, since 家内 (kanai, lit. house + inside) also means wife. I thought perhaps it was a regional or slangy term that I wasn’t familiar with.
In the link you sent me, about halfway down Zyl points out another ema with the same message written for Konata, and he translates 女家 as bride. I can’t seem to find that compound in any of my dictionaries, so I’m still not sure as to the reading.
Ah well, just means I gotta ask one my Japanese friends.
Anyway, good stuff. Thanks for sharing the link.
Very interesting, didn’t know the places were based on true places. When it comes to anime though you never know, the only other pilgrimage I have learned of besides this one is the onegai pilgrimage.
@AS: KyoAni did the same thing with haruhi too.
Interesting and amusing stuff.
[…] ZOMG LUCKY STAR IS REAL! It’s funny how I can relate so much to this show. I mean, similiar to Tsukasa, I’m always tempted to want to eat some great looking food on Food Network… […]
Cool entry!
The word in question is 嫁 (romanji: yome) which means bride. The whole phrase is used colloqually in an aspirational sense rather than a statement of fact.
こなちゃんはかがみんの嫁だ！
[…] disorder and fun and games in their posts, though, as 0rion’s singular take on Washinomiya, or Lucky Star in real life isn’t something to be […]
It’s not a two kanji compound, it’s a single kanji written badly. Thus: 嫁 = bride. It’s indeed made by combining the radicals (i.e. parts of kanji) that inidvidually would be “woman” and “home”.
@ Zyl and Guruhoro
Ahhhh, of course! I’m a moron.
Duh, I even looked up “yome” in the dictionary but failed to make the connection. Thanks for clearing that up for me!
/me facepalm
[…] pilgrimage at an end, I headed back to Akiba for A Second Raid. [Add: Also see Orion’s post at Epic Win and Hakase’s most excellent comparison […]
[…] ZOMG LUCKY STAR IS REAL! It’s funny how I can relate so much to this show. I mean, similiar to Tsukasa, I’m always tempted to want to eat some great looking food on Food Network… […]