Kio Shimoku's Genshiken takes place at the fictional Shiioh University, but relies so heavily on the Tama campus of Tokyo's Chuo University for visual reference that you might as well just come out and say it's set there. Like Shiioh, Chuo is up in the hills to the west the city, on a monorail line, near a zoo. As Kasukabe observes in chapter 2, "The school is only 20 minutes from Shinjuku but it totally feels like it's in the middle of nowhere."
Building 4 on the map is the Club and Circle Building. It's four storeys high, with a central courtyard having U-shaped ends.
From chapter 23 (remembering to read from right to left):
The Genshiken room (304) is across from the second floor Manga Club room, from which Ogiue hurls herself (above), and also the fourth floor Children's Literature Club room, where the elder Gensiken members gather to stage their newbie ambushes.
Shimoku's reliance on actual Chuo topography extends to furniture. The bench in the top photo appears in many volumes, often as a refuge for club members unwilling to enter the club room. The most recent chapter (67) shows Kuchiki steeling himself there for the chapter's punchline.
Other club members to retreat there: Kasukabe (chapter 13):
Sasahara (chapter 52):
[Update: Keiko, Hato and Sue in chapters 80 and 81:]
[And from the anime:]
A full set of Club and Circle Building photos, dated 2005, can be seen here.
Comments