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Haruhi Suzumiya's Real-Life School Opens to Public Before Merging With Another School

The staff for the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise reported on October 1 that Nishinomiya Kita High School, the alma mater of the novel series' author Nagaru Tanigawa and the model for the story's North High School, will hold an open campus event for locals and fans. The event will run on November 23 between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. with four pre-reserved timeslots for 250 guests each. Tickets are 1,000 yen (about US$7) each, and all 1,000 tickets have been sold.

The Haruhi Suzumiya staff noted that many fans have made a "pilgrimage" to Nishinomiya Kita High School due to the anime, but the school had not been officially open to the public until now. It will be open to the public for the first time to repay the local residents and fans for supporting the school for so long.

The current students are hosting tours of the locations seen in the anime and offering visitors an augmented-reality (AR) experience they created on smartphones.

According to the Mainichi Shimbun paper, Nishinomiya Kita High School announced in 2022 that it would merge with Nishinomiya Kabutoyama High School to become Nishinomiya Kurakuen High School. The new high school will use the same campus as Nishinomiya Kita High School. The name change is set to take place in the 2027 academic year following the graduation of current second-year students at Nishinomiya Kita High School.

Sources: Haruhi Suzumiya no Seichi Kaiho! Kitako Open High School's X/Twitteraccount (link 2), Kita High School Open Campus' website, Mainichi Shimbun (link 2)