Sorry, I haven’t been posting recently, but I’ve been super busy finishing up the work that was left to me after Obon. I do have yet another post about travel :D. This time it’s the Isumi Konata house in Satte, Saitama. It’s a recently opened “tourist attraction” where the district is attempting to draw anime fans and their spending to the area by refurbishing a house in a manner that is consistent with Isumi Konata’s house from Lucky Star. If you are a Lucky Star fan that’s planning on going, I strongly suggest you bring someone with you that knows Japanese.
The taxi driver was lost, but once I saw the mailbox I knew we were there.
The website for the venue is actually over here. To get there you need to find your way to Satte station all the way out in Saitama. Once there you need to check the list of ticket vendors for that month. We got lucky this time, since the vendor was the convenience store right next to the station.
Satte Station
The ticket is actually an A4 paper that doubles as a map. Ironically, for all the fanfare about how this was supposed to bring tourism to the area, the taxi driver didn’t know where it was. The ticket is actually only valid for 1 hour from when its purchased, which is really extortion imo.
Ticket/Map
Time to head inside!
A Birthday Party Announcement
Apparently the author’s birthday and Konata’s mom and dad’s birthday are all very close. It looks like they’ll be having a birthday celebration of some sort. For the rest of the post, I guess I’ll keep it to mostly pictures. Sorry but this is going to be picture heavy.
On top of the shoe cupboard...
Everyone was crowded around Konata’s room, so I want to Yutaka’s room first.
I can't even remember what Konata's cousin was like but this is her room.
Surprisingly faithful to the anime...
Studying?
I guess she isn't that smart 😛
Sailor Fuku?
I think she needs a new pc too...
I guess she needs to make her bed too.
They even made a Lucky Star Collector’s room of sorts.
Oo...
I finally got around to visiting Konata’s room next, but the other members of my group were still there!
Konata no heya
The house is awfully small, going in smaller groups is definitely better.
I didn't realize Konata was into Initial D and Tony Taka...
I guess she played her strange MMO from here....
Being able to name everything on the shelf has made me realize I probably need a break from this stuff.
Next we have Konata’s dad’s room!
It's surprisingly devoid of stuffs
But it comes with a shrine for Konata's "dead" mom
Onwards to the top floor!
The top floor is a lounge for resting and working on their ridiculous quiz
If you do manage to complete the quiz correctly, you supposedly get pins that are illustrated and autographed by the artists. Fortunately for me, I think Lucky Star art is flat out terrible, so I don’t really care if I don’t get one :P. The quiz itself is friggin ridiculous. It’s not even a quiz about Lucky Star or any of the author’s works. It’s a quiz about the author’s life, which I know absolutely nothing about. So I ended up filling in random numbers, maybe I’ll still get a prize? :D.
Announcement board + guides for finding the real life references used in the anime.
I'm guess these cards are rare? I really don't care much for trading cards either.
Oh yes the dining room. They even hooked up PC’s to help you with the quiz… Considering that there’s also a time limit in which you have to see the entire house in… I do get the feeling the quiz is a trap.
Bah, I can't get the windows to not overexpose themselves.
Tim futilely tries to take a pic of the chocolate croquette he bought from the snack bar.
Oh and we get a nice postcard as thanks for visiting :).
Alright, and so we’re done with the house… Gotta check out back for a spot that was used in the opening.
Next stop Washnomiya Shrine… As it turns out, this is actually a popular otaku gathering place for everyone in the area. We even got a few Comiket survival tips from these guys.
FEENAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
This crazy guy has monitors looping the Shuffle opening in his car....
Nanoha Itasha!
Shana bikes :O
One of the otakus who's doing handmade Luck Star fans
Oh right the shrine lol. It was closed and it wasn’t that amazing :P.
The entrance
Um... wee building
It was getting late, because it took too long to get the team together.
Alright time to head to my capsule hotel, snapping shots along the way 😀
Yoshinoya.... weee
And some ramen to wrap up.
Yum.
A Foreigner's Tale in Japan 
That is an awesome Idea! When I’m visiting Japan next year Im def. stopping by while im in and around Tokyo.
Yep, it’s about a 1 hour train ride away from Tokyo, provided you don’t get lost of course :P.
That is a cute postcard of Yutaka and Konata that you got for visiting! ^_^
And is that Cirno or some other Touhou character as your desktop background? It looks very nice.
Ah god, I died on Normal mode in Touhou 12 for the 30th time already…
Don’t worry Peter, it’s normal to die in tohou…they made sure only extremists can finish the game without too much trouble.
Decals look so cool >_< Makes me want to get some for a car I might have in the future…but they do seem costly though T_T
It’s not normal to die in Touhou on normal :P, especially since Touhou 12 is actually not as hard as Touhou 11.
It’s relatively easier than the predecessor game, Tohou 11, but sometimes I get myself stuck in situations where it becomes impossible to survive unless I use a bomb…(I try to stay away from using a bomb in the first playthrough just to experience the enhanced difficulty) ^_^
Hehe, being able to bomb at the right time is also a skill in itself too.
I think it’s just my slow reflexes that causes me to die in Touhou so much…though Touhou 12 is a lot easier than Touhou 11.
Oooo, really nice, though I’m not really a Lucky Star fan…or maybe I’m just not much of a Konata fan. But it’s really interesting to see the house. I wonder if anything goes missing once in a while. ^^;;
I remember reading about Nagisa/Tomoya’s house was supposedly in Nagoya, but have since been demolished…a real pity. If you come across the Minami-ke mansion, please let me know. ^^
Do you know how much it cost to itasha your vehicle in Japan?
Actually when I was speaking to the otaku gathering outside the shrine, he said an average car sticker set him back approximately 5,000 yen. His entire car cost, which he won a prize with, cost him around 55,000 yen. The sides of his car and the back are also full of decals.
That’s actually pretty cheap. So those are stickers and not custom paint jobs. ^^
Oh…and the Clannad house is in Osaka…not Nagoya…don’t know why I typed Nagoya. “orz
The Yoshinoya franchise kept me and my wife alive during our trip to Japan. Ordering by using tickets from a machine? Brilliant! And such tasty food for such a good price! (even if it is boring)
But on to the photos…
To stop the windows from over-exposing, I recommend switching to spot-metering mode, metering off of the windows, then reframing and shooting the shot. You have to watch your focusing, but your aperture was giving you a good depth of field, so being a foot or two off is not going to be the end of things.
Alternately, just force the exposure down by a few stops.
Another choice is to use exposure bracketing. Then you can be fairly certain the windows will be well-exposed in one shot. And you can do some fun HDR imagery if you want.
I wish the Nikon D60 supported exposure bracketing, but it doesn’t :(. I’m going to need a tripod to do that and the HDR imagery, but I”m really stingy and still don’t have one :P.
Thanks for the tip about metering, I never actually realized what it did. Looks like I still have plenty more to learn! Hopefully I can get the windows done better for next time.
No flatscreen TVs? D:
Nope, unfortunately not :(.
hahah now all saitama has to do is pass that ordinance to change the school uniforms to the lucky star ones 😛 (or did that already get decided? masaka… ^^;;)
pretty sweet otaku attraction… wish i had gone there when i was in saitama… my brief visit was limited to business ;_;
It would have been worth it just to take a few hours out of your day and go there.
But alas, there’s always next time! I’m sure you plan on going to Japan again!
I haven’t heard any news about the uniforms though.
that otaku looks normal! =P
Was worried that they wouldn’t let you take pics in there when I first heard about the Konata house. Thankfully that was not the case.
Thanks for the pics and enjoyable photo article. While I have been to the Washinomiya shrine, I doubt I’ll go in person to the Konata house. The 1 hour time limit, Japanese only ticket is a bit too much for me.
I found your blog!!
I see me!
I had fun at the Konata house.
Was nice meeting you in Japan.
wowow
didn’t know about that.
That’s another location i MUST visit then i am visiting Japan.
OMG I NEED TO GO THERE!!!!
[…] Izumi Konata’s House […]
plz i wont to go there
there are many tourists attractions to choose from, the only problem that we have is the money to spend to see most of them .
Wow thanks so much for this blog!
I plan to check this place out, but I’m only going to Tokyo the city, so I might not be able to check this place out.
Was it hard to get around with the language barrier or was it good enough? Just curious!