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Answerman - Why Do Anime Students Always Sit In The Same Seat?


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Shiflan



Joined: 29 Jul 2015
Posts: 418
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 3:00 pm Reply with quote
Now that I think about it, isn't it also a trope to sit near the door?

It's been several years since I've watched either show so I might be mistaken, but I seem to remember scenes in both ToHeart and Azumanga Daioh in which certain characters were excited to be assigned seating closest to the classroom door.
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melton80



Joined: 12 Apr 2018
Posts: 25
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 3:26 pm Reply with quote
It is actually quite simple, there is less to animate and draw when for the scenes all you gotta do is draw maybe a couple of students and the corner of the room, instead of a ton of students and half a room for entire scenes.
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Karmik



Joined: 17 Oct 2018
Posts: 2
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 3:47 pm Reply with quote
Akamaru_Inu wrote:
Not to mention it saves the animators and background artists the trouble of drawing a room full of students in designated seats from different angles.


This is the real answer. Always follow the money.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5296
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 3:55 pm Reply with quote
You also need to sit by the window just in case an important plot even happens outside.
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DerekL1963
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Joined: 14 Jan 2015
Posts: 1112
Location: Puget Sound
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 3:58 pm Reply with quote
Seating assignments can literally change your life.

They guys I ended up sitting behind in 3rd period social studies my senior year... Introduced me to AD&D and war gaming. Introduced me to the people that took me to my first SF con and first time to Rocky Horror. They were also SF and ST geeks, the first I'd known in most of a decade. They were both in the AFJROTC at my school and helped convince me that the Navy was a valid career choice. (This was not a popular position in the late 70's - early 80's, and a lot of people were trying to convince me it wasn't.)

I literally would not be who I am today and probably wouldn't be sitting here typing this on an anime site if Charley and Dave hadn't convinced me it was OK to be a nerd. (Unpopular in the redneck neck o' the woods I grew up in. Wasn't shunned or beat up, but wasn't very welcome either.)

Dave sadly passed away young... But nearly four decades later Charley and I are still friends, are friended on FB and still chat regularly.
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Aquasakura



Joined: 01 Jan 2014
Posts: 700
Location: Chesterfield, Virginia, U.S.A
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 4:09 pm Reply with quote
^ Wow! Surprised Nice things had worked out the way they did Derek. Smile
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4463
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 5:00 pm Reply with quote
Zin5ki wrote:
At least WataMote subverted the trend by reallocating its protagonist to a seat antithetical to the windowside ideal, highlighting the disparity in privacy in a rather cruel manner.


The ongoing WataMote manga also shows that some schools have their classes change seats at least two or three times a year. The chapter due out on the GanGan Online website in a few hours may feature such a seat change. spoiler[Tomoko said in chapter 135 that there'd be a seat change after Golden Week (mid-spring holiday week around the beginning of May) and the past six chapters have been set during Golden Week so I suspect this chapter will be "back to school".]
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 5:18 pm Reply with quote
Windows were frosted in some of my schools.
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MoonPhase1



Joined: 29 Nov 2007
Posts: 492
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 5:37 pm Reply with quote
Well just look at My Neighbor Seki. A lot of stuff can happen in the back of the class and the only one who will notice is just the person sitting next to you.
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Wyvern



Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Posts: 1545
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 5:56 pm Reply with quote
Plus, if your hero is in the back window seat, it can set up a contrast with other characters and help establish their personalities. If there's a kid in the front row who looks happy to be there, then you know right away that person is the hard-studying brainy type (or at least the Class Rep) who actually wants the teacher's attention.
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 6:19 pm Reply with quote
My high school had assigned teachers to fixed classrooms, with students moving to different classrooms and seats every period..

Are there schools below college level in Japan that operate this way?
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Ouran High School Dropout



Joined: 28 Jun 2015
Posts: 440
Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 8:22 pm Reply with quote
Zin5ki wrote:
At least WataMote subverted the trend by reallocating its protagonist to a seat antithetical to the windowside ideal, highlighting the disparity in privacy in a rather cruel manner.

And I can still see Tomoko's freak out in my mind... Cool
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Ouran High School Dropout



Joined: 28 Jun 2015
Posts: 440
Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 8:29 pm Reply with quote
MoonPhase1 wrote:
Well just look at My Neighbor Seki. A lot of stuff can happen in the back of the class and the only one who will notice is just the person sitting next to you.

I still want to know how Seki-kun's teachers can be that blind... Rolling Eyes (But then again, if they did have functioning eyeballs, the series would be over really quick.)
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 8:41 pm Reply with quote
I'd just assumed it was another micro-managed regulation of Japanese classrooms, that once the teacher knows the students by class assignment, it stays that way for the entire semester.

That's probably why class teachers in anime shows make such a big deal of saying "____, why don't you let the new student take the empty desk next to you?" whenever the New Transfer Student shows up at the usual plot development.
In a real-life US school, the reaction would normally be "Uh, yeah, I sort of figured that out, thanks..." Razz
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2501
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:14 pm Reply with quote
#888430 wrote:
Akamaru_Inu wrote:
Not to mention it saves the animators and background artists the trouble of drawing a room full of students in designated seats from different angles.
This is the real answer. Always follow the money.
I'd second that but as another possibility, the presence of a conveniently vacant seat may mean that teachers try to keep students away from the window to reduce distraction and the back (the back row in my school experience is where the waste-o's and delinquents were) so if there were less students than seats, the available ones would be where they are shown.

I had the good fortune to have Kyon's seat or the one up for several grades as I loved to gaze out. My 4th grade teacher ridiculed me for being a "dreamer" because of it and tried to hold me back a grade, but the next year I was tested at 4 grades higher level and I have since had a career as an R&D physicist. Nothing wrong with those seats...
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