L☆S: No Nice Boats to be Seen...

In one of the most bizarre anime meets real-life moments of 2007 (aside from the collective number of Haruhi, street dances) was a the heavy tourist bombardment one Japanese shrine received, simply because it was featured in an episode of Lucky☆Star. This month even, a brunch was planned for fans of the show to visit and tour the shrine, with lots of events lined-up to accompany the scheduled tour, and plenty of goodies to give away, including mobile phone charms shaped like shrine plaques with the anime's characters on them.

Meanwhile, one of my favorite anime bloggers, DarkMirage, is in Japan right now and has been taking pictures of some of the other real locations featured in the series. I have to imagine he took some reference photos before the shoot, because some of these match the comparison photos quite well. More pics of his travles, including others of L☆S scenery are available at his blog.

LOL, the former Animate studio

moved and now it's... Studio 404.

Ah, the humor is not lost on me.