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Japanese schools are dangerous at night


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Randall Miyashiro



Joined: 12 Jun 2003
Posts: 2451
Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park
PostPosted: Fri May 09, 2008 5:58 pm Reply with quote
Reading Zalis' topic on traffic accidents is true. One of the things that I have noticed is that there seems to be more schools that are haunted by ghosts and demons at night than graveyards or churches.

Obviously the series Gakkou no Kaidan would be the likely candidate for haunted schools, but there are a few other series that delve into this realm. There is one episode of Mahoromatic that is based around a ghost who haunts their school. In the first DVD of GTO there is a scene where Onizuka thinks that the school is haunted. I know there are at least a few other examples which I can't think of right now (CCS?) but the ratio of ghosts in schools seems ridiculously high.

In Kanon the demon hunter is on campus every night waiting to fight demons. Likewise the first volume of Blood+ has Saya making a visit to campus after hours where monsters are lurking. Japanese schools are dangerous at night.

We are talking about a country where both school and ghosts do play a bigger role in their culture than many Western societies, but I wonder if there is something more to it than that. Is there a famous haunted school in Japan or is this just a common urban myth.
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Porcupine



Joined: 21 Jul 2004
Posts: 1033
PostPosted: Fri May 09, 2008 6:53 pm Reply with quote
Japanese schools can be dangerous during the day too. I recommend Haunted Junction as another ghosts-in-school anime.

I have no idea if there is a famous haunted school in Japan or something but the typical, various ghosts-in-school myths (such as the walking human anatomical skeleton, ghosts in the pool, etc) do seem to recur in many anime. I kind of had attributed the recurrence of this theme though mostly to modern-day anime trends. Namely, another trend I've noticed with many modern anime and manga is that there are many shows that seem to be about nothing. Just kids going to school or playing at home, maybe with some underlying theme or gag, but still the same premise nontheless. Stuff like School Rumble, Hayate the Combat Butler, Haruhi, etc. Almost anything sort of. There's not much of the true fantasy/fighting/adventure genre these days. And when you have hundreds of shows like this, you tend to get the same "valentine's day episode" or "christmas season episode" or "ghosts in my school episode" or "school field trip episode" sort of things again and again. That's just my take on it.
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rainbowcourage



Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 1216
Location: what is commonly known as "hell week"
PostPosted: Fri May 09, 2008 7:26 pm Reply with quote
In Kekkaishi Yoshimori and Tokine's ayakashi hunting ground is their school, and it is the sacred land they protect. So I would have to agree with your assessment that Japanese schools at night are one of the most dangerous places to be at night Shocked
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Monster in a box



Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 671
PostPosted: Fri May 09, 2008 8:19 pm Reply with quote
I've always thought Japanese classrooms were most dangerous at sundown, but I guess as long as you aren't supposed to be there, something bad is going to go down.

Tsukihime is a good example...
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Fri May 09, 2008 8:42 pm Reply with quote
Ok, I have been wondering this for a while but its probably much more easily answered by people who have been to or live/d in Japan, but I notice a lot of schools look the same in anime/manga. Schools here meaning the series and the school are set in Japan and it is a normal school (instead of a school for learning how to be a witch or something). Name almost any anime with a normal japanese school, and they almost all seem to have the exact same setup of chairs in the room, hallways, stairs, etc. Morningwood Academy (GTO) looks a lot like Furinkan High (Ranma 1/2), which looks similar to the school in Death Note, the list just goes on.
Do they do this because all Japanese schools really look samey, or just because they can?
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watchdog210



Joined: 10 Nov 2007
Posts: 114
Location: North West Florida
PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 9:45 am Reply with quote
Don't forget about the stray plant based monster that can randomly come by and flatten the school like in Blue Seed.

I would hate to see the insurance rates. Laughing
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Ishmoo



Joined: 11 Nov 2006
Posts: 413
Location: Fredericksburg, VA
PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 9:51 am Reply with quote
Here in the US we seem to have a lot of very dangerous closets. There always seems to be something lurking in there at night, primarily in children's rooms. I wonder what the current stats are for closet uglies.
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Zoe



Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 898
Location: Austin
PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 10:32 am Reply with quote
classicalzawa wrote:

Do they do this because all Japanese schools really look samey, or just because they can?


Apparently they literally use the same layout for just about all schools. One of my classmates said that his high school looked *exactly* like the one used in GTO despite being filmed at a different location.
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abynormal



Joined: 09 Apr 2008
Posts: 427
Location: Louisiana
PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:11 pm Reply with quote
You don't see many haunted churches in anime because, well, there aren't many churches in Japan. Christians make up about 1% or less of the population, and a church more often than not consists of a rented-out room in a building. You don't see very many churches in the traditional European / American sense.

And, correct me if I'm wrong, due to Japanese horror traditions and Shinto religion, horrific elements aren't confined to "creepy" places like graveyards and forests. The supernatural can happen anywhere, and given the reduced importance of temples and shrines these days, writers use familiar settings to the audience for the supernatural. In your example, they use schools because it's such a major part of the target audience's life.
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abunai
Old Regular


Joined: 05 Mar 2004
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PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 2:22 pm Reply with quote
School design... I'm not 100% familiar with the specifics for Japan, but let me generalize based on what I know about the developed world in general.

In the course of the massive upswing in individual wealth and general economic growth in the developed world, after WWII, there was a corresponding increase in general education. Before WWII, most of the population in most developed countries received a limited school education, corresponding (depending on country) to 5-8 years of school. No junior high or high school, or its local equivalent, unless your parents were solidly middle class or better.

During the post-war economic boom, all over the developed world, massive urbanization took place (over and above the process that had already been underway for up to a century beforehand), and existing schools had to adapt. Rural municipalities concentrated their schoolchildren in central locations, for efficiency -- which, incidentally, sometimes meant very long trips to school for the children. Urban municipalities, suffering under a massive influx of poor unskilled labor from the rural communities, compensated by building many new (and large) schools to handle the many new schoolchildren. As the average length of education increased, this problem only grew worse.

The result can be seen all over the developed world. Schools built from the late 1950s to the late 1970s are usually cookie-cutter designs, designed for speed of construction (and cheapness), not grace.

There was, incidentally, a similar surge in school construction in the late 19th century, as the first mandatory public education systems began to be implemented -- and a similar effect of numerous near-identical schools being built.

By the late 1970s, this process of school expansion had more or less run its course, and the slow decline in birth rates in the developed nations meant that new schools were less in demand -- and the few new schools that were being built were not infrequently prestige projects of one kind or another. More time to build, better design, often better budgets -- and individualistic designs.

There are exceptions to this generalization for the developed world. Some countries have economic systems with far more inequality than others (I need hardly name names), and national legacies of racial and/or economic inequality keep some groups in relative poverty -- with correspondingly bad educational opportunities (and limited school construction budgets).

Anyway, getting back to the issue of similarities in Japanese schools -- I would wager that what we are seeing is the result of a centralized design system based on a push to build many schools in a short period of time (early 1960s, I'd estimate) under budgetary constraints limiting the design choices.

- abunai
I wrote about the effects of expanded education on poor rural children in the 1950s and 60s, in a chapter of my book on the history of the Danish Smallholders' Society, if you're interested (and can read Danish).
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 25 Oct 2003
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Location: Wales
PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 9:29 pm Reply with quote
What always surprises me is how easy it is for kids to wander around schools at night. If they can get in so easy, how come they have any A/V and computer equipment left?
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LydiaDianne



Joined: 28 Jan 2006
Posts: 5633
Location: Southern California
PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 10:12 pm Reply with quote
Shiroi Hane wrote:
What always surprises me is how easy it is for kids to wander around schools at night. If they can get in so easy, how come they have any A/V and computer equipment left?


Because the Japanese are nicer than we are? And wouldn't dream of stealing from their school?
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Cirno



Joined: 05 May 2008
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2008 12:11 am Reply with quote
LydiaDianne wrote:
Shiroi Hane wrote:
What always surprises me is how easy it is for kids to wander around schools at night. If they can get in so easy, how come they have any A/V and computer equipment left?


Because the Japanese are nicer than we are? And wouldn't dream of stealing from their school?


Oh man I do not believe that for a second. Maybe there's some kind of draconian punishment for getting caught stealing that keeps them from doing it?
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Shadowrun20XX



Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 1935
Location: Vegas
PostPosted: Sun May 11, 2008 12:53 am Reply with quote
Cirno wrote:
LydiaDianne wrote:
Shiroi Hane wrote:
What always surprises me is how easy it is for kids to wander around schools at night. If they can get in so easy, how come they have any A/V and computer equipment left?


Because the Japanese are nicer than we are? And wouldn't dream of stealing from their school?


Oh man I do not believe that for a second. Maybe there's some kind of draconian punishment for getting caught stealing that keeps them from doing it?


One hundred kendo stick strikes from any direction,while crawling across triangular slats,blindfolded and your arms are outstretched holding water buckets.You drop em,we start over. P.S.Kuno wants to date with you.
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fighterholic



Joined: 28 Sep 2005
Posts: 9193
PostPosted: Mon May 12, 2008 12:47 am Reply with quote
Only thing I heard about was urban legends concerning my school. And yes, they supposedly happen at night, however another story I heard was one of my sempai actually heard one of the ghosts from the legends.
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