The Real High School that Inspired K-ON!

One of my favorite elements of moe show K-ON! was the high school they went to. There were all sorts of whimsical details, like the little tortoise statues decorating the staircase handrails. I thought such a high school must have been a product of kakifly's imagination.

It's real. Judging from the video below, the school fell into very bad disrepair recently, but thanks to a sit-in protest by locals, it was repaired and re-opened. Now that its inspiration for K-ON! has been revealed, it's being visited by otaku; you'll get to see a lot of itasha (anime-painted cars) in the video.

This follows the great interest otaku showed in the shrine Lucky Star was based on. If nothing else, I think this underscores the importance of using real life as a basis for anime. The verisimilitude of the anime built the fanbase, which in turn attracted them back to the real location.