Location hunting: Sound! Euphonium edition
July 26, 2015 5 Comments
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| The Sound! Euphonium x Keihan Railway Collaboration started yesterday, and since I was in the region, I decided to check it out… If you want to use one of these one-day passes, not all stations stock them, so look it up before you go! | |
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| The first stop was Ōbaku Station on the Uji Line… | |
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| …to pick up one of these. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one… in fact, that plastic bag was a dead giveaway… |
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| Back on the train, and on to Uji, around which Kumiko, Shuuichi, Aoi and Reina all live… | |
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| The path around the back of the Genji museum actually leads to the approach to Mt. Daikichi, so it wasn’t too difficult to find. Unfortunately, personal circumstances had me forego climbing to the top, otherwise, I’d probably have planned an evening hike. | |
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| Carrying on down the hill, however, brings you to the shrine Reina prefers, Ujigami Shrine. | |
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| Quite a different atmosphere during the day, huh? | |
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| Incidentally, I agree with Reina… (Ujigami Shrine is on the left, and Uji Shrine is on the right.) |
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| But Uji Shrine also has something memorable… | |
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| After that, I hit the river, and sought out a familiar spot on the bank. Must admit that I’m stunned that Hazuki lugged her Tubacabra all the way here! |
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| I stopped by Byodoin next (it’s the building on the back of the 10 yen piece), and this turned out to be round the corner from the south exit… Yup, the apartment block in which Kumiko’s family lives doesn’t actually exist, though Japanese fans have found its model elsewhere… | |
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| Then, I picked up some green tea ice cream (made with Uji tea, I think), and then found my way to this little bench… |
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| …before finishing off at the bridge. This was also the place where Gotō and Riko met up for the festival, but someone was on that bench the entire time I was there… | |
And that’s pretty much all the photos I took that kind of matched up. The trick, of course, is to make print outs of all the shots you want to take so that you can fine-tune the camera angles on the fly. (NB: I didn’t do this. I hadn’t even planned to visit Uji when I started on this trip…) You might even try to match the time of day! Personally, though, unless you live in the area and want to document every little thing, I’d recommend limiting the number of shots you really want to get, lest you forget to enjoy yourself and chill a little!
One other thing I should note for anyone planning to try this before the promotion ends in September/October: if you can, try to go only after a spate of good weather (i.e. no rain). There’s a dam a little further up the Uji river, and they occasionally let the excess water flow out, thus sending a torrent down the river. As it turns, it had been raining for most of the week, so that’s precisely what happened yesterday. Unfortunately for me, that meant that a couple of locations were closed off… I also didn’t make it to the Uji travel centre, so if anyone finds a Sound! Euphonium location map there, please let me know so that I can lament my terrible planning!
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| And after all that, I felt exactly as Kumiko did here… though I did not let down my hair that much, honest! |
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p.s. I did make it out to the Keihan Otsu Line after all, even though I didn’t have enough time to actually jump on the train. And unfortunately, despite using the previous train for a test run, I didn’t quite work out the right camera settings to use…
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| The front and rear of the train… | |
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| Kumiko and Hazuki (sorry, I wasn’t quick enough to get a closer shot of the latter…) | |
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| …and Reina and Midori… | |
If anyone’s planning on going out there, here are a couple of little tips. First, you’ll probably want to spend the day doing this, as the two sides of the train are different, and you’ll also want to hop on in order to get shots of the interior images. That’s probably why the collaboration tickets–which I didn’t buy, since I’m not too fond of the designs and had already spent way too much elsewhere–are one-day passes. The real trick, however, is to find a quiet station and ask the attendant when the train will be there during the course of the day — if it’s not too busy, he’ll probably be happy to look it up for you. Luckily for me, the other train I wanted to see currently follows this one by about 15 minutes. Which train? Well, if you can’t figure it out, it’ll be in my next post.(^_^)
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Yay, finally posted! I was waiting for this!
Uji is such a beautiful place. I envy you… *sobs
All I have is a pilgrimage map made by fellow fan, and a Japanese blog to feed my curiosity. :’D
I have many questions! But I’d let just three (or four?) of them slip up from my fingers here, hopefully they won’t bother you too much:
()Is the one-day pass only valid for Keihan stations that is featured in the anime? How much would you have to pay for the pass?
()How long does it take to walk from the station to the shrine? I remember Kumiko bringing her euphonium all the way from her home to Mt. Daikichi :p Sounds tough to do.
()I read somewhere that KyoAni is located in Uji as well. Did you stop by there as well?
Sorry, I had to ask. :p
Anyway, ^_^
I really love how skillful KyoAni is in capturing actual locations into their animes. They did wonders in promoting Kyoto. I personally fall in love with Kyoto thanks to their work (and definitely will visit Uji area of I go there someday!). Plus they did good in syncing this anime with the actual competition in Japan, (or so I’ve read… with my poor japanese. At least I’m convinced that Wind of Provence is an official required repertoire, and they use the official logo as well in the anime) so it adds to the experience.
Sound! Euphonium just felt so real thanks to their effort! I wonder how Japanese students who join the brass band–especially those who actually live in Uji–would feel about the anime, since I just read comments from those who experience it, but live outside Japan. But digging such detail would demand better skill in Japanese that I haven’t had… yet ^_^;;
Again, thank you for sharing!
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(^^;; ) sorry for the last minute take down for revision! I decided to go to see the train on the Otsu Line on Sunday morning, literally just about the time I’d scheduled the post to go up!
Uji really is gorgeous. As I mentioned to a friend yesterday, I’d prefer to live there rather than Kyoto, because the latter tends to be full of tourists!
LOL – that’s the map I used when I was walking around!
No – I think it works on all the Keihan lines except for the Otsu one, though I only went from Kyoto to Obaku and Uji and back myself. It costs 1,200 yen for one pass. The other special tickets are for the Otsu line, which is the one where the S!E train is running — that also costs 1,200 yen, but it comes with two day passes. The downside of that one is that you can only use it on the Otsu Line – but as I mentioned above, you’ll might want to spend all day there anyway!
Hm…Keihan Uji Station (#1 on that fan map) is about 10 minutes from Ujigami Shrine (#23) I think. But Kumiko’s house (#13) is a bit further from the station, and on the other side of the Uji river. So if the smaller bridges are closed and she has to use the main one, that increases her trip to the shrine by about 15 minutes.
Is it??? I must admit, I didn’t even think to check! Well, I guess I’ll have to plan for that on my next trip to Kyoto…
No worries – I have a bit of time waiting for trains and stuff, so I’ve been answering in bits and pieces!
A lot of studios use real places / buildings etc as models for their settings, though I do think that KyoAni does it more than most. The thing about KyoAni, though, is that a lot of their shows are set in real places in Japan, so it’d be terrible if they didn’t capture the locations well!
Personally, though, I think it’s far more difficult to create imaginary places. With real locations, the macro view of the place is already created for you — with imaginary ones, you have to actually plan how everything is connected to each other. Any animation team that can make an imaginary location look and feel like a place that could really exist is one I’d take my hat off to. But it’s hard — I’d be hard pressed to go beyond Ghibli off the top of my head!
Though kudos to KyoAni for beautiful animation as always ^^
Yeah, I’ve heard that it’s one of the songs on the set pieces list. S!E is effectively a promotion for the concert band association of Japan and its national high school competitions, so I’m not surprised that they’re cooperating to this extent.
The vibe I get is that they loved it. The people writing in to the radio show (at least, those people whose letters were selected) were pretty much all band members or were inspired by the show to take up music. ^^
You’re welcome! Personally, I’m just glad you like it, because honestly speaking, writing this and some of the other anime-related things I’ve done makes me feel guilty, because it sounds as if I’m ‘bragging’, if you know what I mean…
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Thank you for taking your time answering my questions!
EH!!!
…Thanks to you, I just realized that Uji is not in Kyoto (city), but still within Kyoto Prefecture. Oh all this time, I really thought Uji is within the prefecture capital. ^///___///^
Yes, it is. I’ve checked it again on Google Maps ^_^ I heard the studio is just a few blocks away from KyoAni shop.
Yeah, I won’t argue about the difficulty difference 😀 Ghibli is easily my favorite for imaginary settings. But I admit, my craving to go to Kyoto is strongly influenced by KyoAni. I want to do location hunting so badly! >__<
(I’d love to brag if I were you :p)
You don’t need to feel guilty! It’s your blog at the first place. Plus I always like to read more stories about anime that I care about, no matter how envious I’d be afterward. Nah, I even think it’s necessary for me to feel jealous every now and then. It’s a good motivation!
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That’s why I was surprised that KyoAni is in Uji. But come to think of it, it only takes about half an hour from Kyoto, so it’s not really all that far out of the city! And I’m sure all the ppl who work for the studio there like it that way.
What I’d be interested in finding out, though, are the logistics. Most seiyuu work in Tokyo, so I assume the voice recording takes place in a Tokyo studio. But if so, does the director not attend? Or does he have to travel between Tokyo and Kyoto every week or something?
I’m sure you’ll be able to do it one day! (I just happen to be at an age where I’ve got the funds to go…though not the time, if I’m honest about it…^^;; ) But at least you know you want to go, so you’ll be able to plan and make sure you see everything you want to see!
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