Yamaku Location Confirmed, Iwanako Reveal

[brythain]

From Cpl Crud: [Easter Egg Edition]

(There's also a mildly annotated Google map.)

Sendai Castle. Somehow, in the process of deciding where to base Yamaku High, we decided upon Sendai. I think we thought that having it in a major metropolitan area would be difficult, but it would need to be near a semi-major city in order to have the medical facilities that were required.

After we made that decision I spent 2 days of my first trip to Japan exploring Sendai, and many of the “city” backgrounds in the game come from that trip. (My friends had no idea that this is why we were there).

The school is set in the location of the ruins of Sendai Castle. I caught a bus up the hill to the castle site and then walked back from there to Sendai City (a long distance). After that trip I returned and wrote the detailed description of the school’s environment, and apart from a few changes to match the photos, they pretty much stayed. In 2015 Suriko actually went to Sendai and got a photo of him “being Lilly” in the exact same spot as one of the scenes from the game.

In other news, he reveals the origins of Iwanako's name.

[Munchenhausen]

Poland can into KS! :DDDD

[Mirage_GSM]

Well, that location does not really fit what we see in the VN.
There the town below Yamaku and the city are two seperate locations that are not in walking distance of each other.
So if the locations in the VN are based on this it's likely that the town at the foot of the hill was later inserted and the distance to the city increased to the point that you'd have to take the bus to get there.

[brythain]

Well, that location does not really fit what we see in the VN.
There the town below Yamaku and the city are two seperate locations that are not in walking distance of each other.
So if the locations in the VN are based on this it's likely that the town at the foot of the hill was later inserted and the distance to the city increased to the point that you'd have to take the bus to get there.

Do they always take the bus into town, though? Hisao seems to manage on foot. It's only to places like Emi's house and on shopping trips that they take the bus, which would be the case if a reasonably large city was around the school.

[Mirage_GSM]

They always walk down to the town below the hill. They always take the bus when they go to the city for shopping or to visit Meiko.
The city and the town are two distinct locations in the VN. It's something we paid a lot of attention to in the translation.
They are described differently. For example in Act 1 Hisao describes the town as a quiet place where only old people live.
When Hisao first goes to the city in L2 he thinks:
"After living at Yamaku, the city seems like an entirely different world."
and a few lines down:
"It's strange. Having lived in a metropolitan city before my accident, this should feel more natural than Yamaku and the surrounding town ever could."
He also says this is his first time coming to this city.

[brythain]

They always walk down to the town below the hill. They always take the bus when they go to the city for shopping or to visit Meiko.
The city and the town are two distinct locations in the VN. It's something we paid a lot of attention to in the translation.
They are described differently. For example in Act 1 Hisao describes the town as a quiet place where only old people live.
When Hisao first goes to the city in L2 he thinks:
"After living at Yamaku, the city seems like an entirely different world."
and a few lines down:
"It's strange. Having lived in a metropolitan city before my accident, this should feel more natural than Yamaku and the surrounding town ever could."
He also says this is his first time coming to this city.

I think it might be a) because the city and the town are conceptually two different locations, but also b) because in many places, the city is the main shopping/financial district and 'town' is any reasonably built-up region, but both can be geographically coterminous. This is true also of places like London, which is several towns and the City.

Sendai (and places like Kyoto etc) are full of old people during the daytime because most of the young are working in the city area. Of course, there will also be old people in the city, but the proportions tend to be very different. Yamaku is certainly not in the city. It's a park outside the city, essentially, with a suburb (i.e. town, not city) in the vicinity—Tohoku University town, if you like. Alternatively, the city is the huge shopping district north/northwest of Sendai station.

Here, have a look at a map of the population density in Sendai during the tsunami. It will show you what I mean. Aoba-ku is where Yamaku ('mountain-ward') is supposed to be. The City area is nearer the coastal area to the east (see, more block-like road patterns). The old town is south of Sendai station (see the small twisty roads there, a dead giveaway for old towns).

[Mirage_GSM]

That's not population density, that's rate of evacuees per resident.

Also the terms "suburb" or "city-ward" don't appear in the VN even once.
When they go shopping they don't go "downtown"; they go to the city.
It's pretty unambiguous throughout the VN.

[brythain]

That's not population density, that's rate of evacuees per resident.

It correlates well. See this map and think of the population density.

Also the terms "suburb" or "city-ward" don't appear in the VN even once.
When they go shopping they don't go "downtown"; they go to the city.
It's pretty unambiguous throughout the VN.

That's irrelevant, whether the term appears or not. They don't go to the city when visiting the convenience store or the park. I was offering a plausible explanation for a distinction why one part of Sendai would be 'town' and another 'city'. Many cities work that way (e.g. London, as I've noted). Hisao in Rin's route does go 'downtown' for shopping though, he actually mentions 'summer sales'. I suspect Rin's route has the majority of mentions, with Hanako's route also mentioning 'downtown'.

Without going into details of the specific location of the Shanghai etc, I am certain that it's suburban. A bit of detective work will tell you why.

[Mirage_GSM]

Well, it doesn't really matter either way, does it?
So let's just agree to disagree.

[Eurobeatjester]

I kindof think of Yamaku like Springfield in the Simpsons.

Based on several real places but doesn't actually exist in any of them.

[Leaty]

As a celebrated Iwanako historian, I've actually suspected that about her name for a long time. It's basically the name "Yvana" with a child radical.

[Steinherz]

As a celebrated Iwanako historian, I've actually suspected that about her name for a long time. It's basically the name "Yvana" with a child radical.

.... that makes a lot of sense honestly.

[brythain]

As a celebrated Iwanako historian, I've actually suspected that about her name for a long time. It's basically the name "Yvana" with a child radical.

.... that makes a lot of sense honestly.

Maybe she's a foreign heiress and her gaijin name is Ivanka...

[Suriko]

The distance between the town and city are fictionalised.

During development, and without real regard for the actual geography of Sendai Castle, we decided to make three distinct game locations: Yamaku campus (at the top of the hill), the unnamed local town (at the foot of the hill, within walking distance), and "the city" which is not within walking distance. It's only really Sendai insofar as a few of the background photos are from there (the main city background photo is literally one step outside Sendai Station), and that distances to more remote locations are timed based off distance from Sendai (when we didn't fuck it up).

This is largely why we didn't namedrop Sendai or Sendai Castle within the VN - the distances don't match up quite right, so we genericised them into 'town' and 'the city'.

[brythain]

The distance between the town and city are fictionalised.

During development, and without real regard for the actual geography of Sendai Castle, we decided to make three distinct game locations: Yamaku campus (at the top of the hill), the unnamed local town (at the foot of the hill, within walking distance), and "the city" which is not within walking distance. It's only really Sendai insofar as a few of the background photos are from there (the main city background photo is literally one step outside Sendai Station), and that distances to more remote locations are timed based off distance from Sendai (when we didn't fuck it up).

This is largely why we didn't namedrop Sendai or Sendai Castle within the VN - the distances don't match up quite right, so we genericised them into 'town' and 'the city'.

Thanks very much!

Now we can get back to all the terrible fan-fiction that sends shudders down the collective 4LS spines...