Friday 7 August 2015

The Fushimi Inari Shrine - Aria the Natural Episode 5

Click here for Aria Pilgrim's Map of Venice

It has been approximately 6 years since my last post and finally, I have a little bit of new material to post after my trip to Japan!  With Aria the Avvenire around the corner (which I hope to cover), this is a fitting time to make a post.

I have also started a sister blog, Hyouka the Origination to compare the locations used in the anime, Hyouka to the real world.

Aria the Natural Ep5 sees Alicia and Akari visit an island full of Japanese Torii gates.  In Neo-Venezia, nations from Man-Home had been allocated islands to display their cultural showcase.  Obviously, these islands do not exist in the real-world Venice.  This episode however is based on a location in real-world Japan, the Fushimi Inari Shrine, located in the southern part of Kyoto.

All anime screenshots copyright of Hal Film Maker, fair use for educational purposes.

The entrance to the shrine is indeed guarded by statues of the Fox deity.


There is however, no small store just after the entrance.   It's actually very busy with tourists and some souvenir stores.

Another point to note is, when Akari buys the tofu for the second time, the shopkeeper says "Thank You" in the Kansai dialect, reinforcing the origin of the location (Kyoto is in the Kansai area of Japan).


Right after the entrance and the shops is the main temple in the real world.  The episode oddly inserts this in a random segment when Akari is lost.  Below image courtesy of Google Streetview, fair use for educational purposes.



Where the path splits into two.  There are several parts of the shrine where this happens.  Below image courtesy of Google Streetview, fair use for educational purposes.














































The wooded areas in some parts are truly creepy, just as depicted in the anime.















































There are a lot of graves dotted around the hill.














































If you were to visit the Fushimi Inari Shrine, do allocate 3 hours of your time.  The torii gates continue into the beautiful hillside.  Whilst the bottom of the hill is packed with tourists making good photos impossible, the crowd really thins out as you ascend.

5 comments:

sorashi said...

Hey!
I don't know if you still check this blog or not, but I just want to say that I really appreciate this blog content :D
Your post really enhance my experience of watching ARIA, and it makes me feel more and more immersed in the world of Neo-Venezia!
Now that Avvenire is out, are you going to make another post on that? Because if you will, I'm really looking forward for it!!

Inthernet said...

Hello, thanks for commenting. It's great to see people still finding their way to this blog after all these years! I am planning one more post regarding Avvenire once the final episode airs. Don't set your expectations too high though, there's not much new material that I've noticed so far.

trixie said...

Having just gotten into Aria and being utterly entranced by all of it, I found this blog and loved all the content here. Really nice work.

Even if you decide not to do a post for Avvenire, thank you for running this! It's made the show more miraculous for me.

minkia said...

Fushimi inari is one of the most interesting kyoto shrines ... the climb with the torii is tiring but it is worth the effort ... so many people, but on working days one walks well. Not to go in the summer with the hot humid Japanese ... I wrote an article about this sanctuary https://www.giappominkia.com/fushimi-inari/
Fascinating to know that there are over 40 thousand Inari shrines throughout Japan and Fushimi is the origin of all.

Anonymous said...

Came here to give my biggest thanks to you for creating the Aria Pilgrim map and really enhancing my experience in Venice. I almost can't believe that you made the map 13 years ago but here I am to assure you that even after so many years new fans like me fortunate enough to make the pilgrimage will still come to your blog to check the references and visit their favorite locations from the show. Really awesome blog and great work.