Toyosato's 1937 schoolhouse, where K-On borrowed a staircase and a tortoise

In Toyosato, a rice-farming town in Shiga, a white 1937 schoolhouse stands at the end of a long forecourt. Viewers of the anime K-On tend to recognise its staircase before they reach the door.

A school the town almost demolished

The old Toyosato Elementary School was designed by William Merrell Vories and funded by Furukawa Tetsujiro, a trading-house executive born in the town. Around 2000 the town moved to demolish it. Residents objected, a new school was built next door, and the restored building reopened in 2009, weeks after K-On began airing. The studio has not named a model; the resemblance does the work.

What the frame borrowed

Bronze figures of a hare and a tortoise run up the stair handrails, the hare asleep partway and the tortoise at the top. On the third floor, the old music room is set with donated tea cups on pushed-together desks, and visitors leave chalk messages on the board. This is seichi junrei (聖地巡礼), pilgrimage to a story's setting, done at walking pace.

うさぎとかめが、今日も階段の手すりをのぼっている。

Getting there, and the school next door

Toyosato Station is on the Ohmi Railway, a change at Hikone from the JR line, and the school is about ten minutes on foot. The building is generally open from 9:00 to 17:00, free of charge. The town library uses part of it and the current elementary school stands alongside, so keep lenses on the old building and voices low in the corridors.