Lucky Star - Shrine

Washinomiya shrine is quite well-known for being the Lucky Star shrine. They even had footage of when some of the voice actors visited this shrine on the US DVD set as bonus content. This was the last Lucky Star location I felt like I just had to visit while in Japan. I took the train to Washinomiya station and walked to the shrine.



If you take the correct path to the shrine you'll cross this bridge.




Image from Episode 9 - 09m35s


This bridge was shown in the anime.




Image from Episode 23 - 09m14s


You can recognize the lamp in the middle of the picture.




Image from Lucky Star OP - 00m30s


Kagami dances in front of the torii gate in the Lucky Star OP.




Underneath the ad board to the right in the previous picture there's this stone tablet of the Hiiragi sisters.




Ads for various events on the ad board.




Image from Episode 12 - 12m56s


Closeup of the torii gate.




Image from Episode 12 - 13m01s


The path to the shrine itself.




The purification font.




Image from Episode 12 - 14m56s


This instruction placard hanging at the purification font was shown in the anime. I also saw the same placard at another shrine, but more about that in a later post.




Image from Episode 12 - 13m03s


The main shrine building.




Image from Episode 12 - 16m51s


The place for hanging ema. Warning: This is an extra large picture to show more details.


This now have a lot of anime ema. Warning: This is an extra large picture to show more details.


Lots of otaku make this trip. Warning: This is an extra large picture to show more details.




While in Washinomiya you might notice all these banners hanging from various power poles.




The banners are all over town.




They also have this portable shrine decorated with Lucky Star drawings here.




It was really sunny so this was as good a picture I could get. I've marked the current location of the portable shrine as the starting point on the location map.




Near the train station there's a store that in addition to normal stuff also sells various Lucky Star inspired items. This includes Tsundere Kagami hot sauce and Lucky Star spice mix.




They also have some doujin magazines.




Lucky Star decorations inside the shop.




More decorations.




And a signed drawing.



Location map:



This location was visited on 2014/04/15.

Links:
Washinomiya shrine official website

Special thanks to the ones who went here before:
http://punynari.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/pilgrimage-to-washinomiya-shrine/
http://otakumode.com/sp/visit_japan/seichi-junrei/s006