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In many anime, there are places where you can get an overview of (part of) the town, just like in the pictures below.

  • From Koi to Uso enter image description here
  • From The Quintessential Quintuplets enter image description here
  • From Shuffle! enter image description here

Where I live and in places around, there are no such places at all. Why are these kinds of places so common in anime?

Michael
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    Is this maybe like why anime always has rooftops or something? P.S. [in where](https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/325874/is-it-grammatically-correct-and-natural-to-use-in-where-in-this-sentence) – BCLC Oct 25 '22 at 04:19
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    Japan is quite mountainous (from the top of my head around 70%), so I would expect it to be depicted in their media more often, as chances are the authors grew up with such a landscape. – Dimitri mx Oct 25 '22 at 07:51
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    It's potentially a combination of (a) it makes a good setting for certain types of scenes, and (b) there happen to be places that look like it close to the animation studios, so it's easy to scout them. – ConMan Oct 26 '22 at 00:46
  • Because you live on flat land and Japan is very mountainous. – Ocean Oct 29 '22 at 16:28

1 Answers1

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I don't really know how easy you can find such places, but "Western greater Tokyo" is one area where you can find those places.

For example this lists parks with similar views in Kawasaki city, city to the west/south of Tokyo.

Generally, the greater Tokyo area is flat although Japan is covered mostly by mountains as commented. Even then, the western part of Tokyo (not Tokyo-Tokyo full of skyscrapers, here Tokyo means an area defined by government) was originally hills and developed after the war.

There is this joke song made by the heroine of Whisper of the Heart:

Concrete roads, everywhere

Cutting down the trees, filling in the valley

West Tokyo, Mount Tama

My hometown is concrete roads

The 'western part of Tokyo' mentioned above basically corresponds to Tama area mentioned in the lyrics. Thus the area is hills made habitable, hence places like what you see are easy enough to find (probably). FYI the movie has some similar views (you can see the real pictures for example in this blog).

sundowner
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