Ask!

[Atario]

Hokkaido's about 60% the size of the state of NY

So, about the same land area as South Carolina.

Maybe I'm spoiled by being from California.

I can see how you might have a house near a city like Sapporo and decide to have another place out in a less populated area to spend summer in. Fact: it's quite common for relatively well-off people to have a place near their work and a place some distance further out that isn't hundreds of miles away.

Hm. Maybe I'm just not familiar with the ways of the more well-to-do. Never having been a party to a summer home, I always assumed they were supposed to be someplace with a significantly cooler climate than the main home. Or, at the very least, at the coast. Since the Satous' was neither, I guess I got corn-fused…

[SpecimenSix]

I think I've missed my window since I'm sure A22 won't stop by the forums for at least another year, but I've always wondered since I first joined these forums...what the fuck is his user avatar?

[Guest Poster]

He's actually participating in one of the threads right now.

[Aura]

It's the "anguished jew" image macro.

[Guest Poster]

It's been years, and Lilly's path was a mess of continuous and haphazard edits. From what I can remember, this is closest to what was intended.

It seems to me it's like this:

1. Family lives in House A (the one near a city on Hokkaido)
2. Family moves to House B ("our real house", the one fairly south of Sendai/Yamaku), keeping House A as a vacation home
3. Parents move to Scotland
4. Lilly and Akira decide to (and/or convince parents to) sell House A to buy House C (the small Hokkaido house in the country which we see on the weekend trip)
5. They continue living in House B, using House C as a vacation home

I'm pretty sure it was something like:

Family lives in A, owns the summerhouse as C
They move to Scotland
Akira sells up and she and Lilly move to smaller southern house B (the 'real house')
They keep C as a holiday home/retreat

That makes sense for the most part, though there's still the issue of home A and home B being apparantly quite far apart. Home B is apparantly south of Yamaku and far enough to make commuting not overly practical as Lilly eventually moved into the dorms. Home B is apparantly fairly close to the company office.

Home A is apparantly on Hokkaido and not too far from the summer home. It took Lilly, Hanako and Hisao quite some time to get to the summer home from Yamaku, meaning home A and home B are even further apart.

HOWEVER...

Akira and Lilly attended the same (strict girls-only) middle school. Akira attended it while the family was living in home A. Lilly attended it 7 years later while she and Akira were living in home B. Seeing how far home A and home B are apart, one of the two (or both) would have needed an airplane instead of a school bus to go to school each day. Unless it was a boarding school, but it feels weird to put 12-year olds in dormitories and I don't think middle school/boarding school combinations would be very common if existent at all in Japan.

[Comrade]

I think I've missed my window since I'm sure A22 won't stop by the forums for at least another year, but I've always wondered since I first joined these forums...what the fuck is his user avatar?

It's an israeli settler wuth down syndrom

[brythain]

Akira and Lilly attended the same (strict girls-only) middle school. Akira attended it while the family was living in home A. Lilly attended it 7 years later while she and Akira were living in home B. Seeing how far home A and home B are apart, one of the two (or both) would have needed an airplane instead of a school bus to go to school each day. Unless it was a boarding school, but it feels weird to put 12-year olds in dormitories and I don't think middle school/boarding school combinations would be very common if existent at all in Japan.

Probably no longer on-topic, but it would be a school something like this one—Catholic, boarding etc. Akira would have boarded, and Lilly might have commuted later. But that's a suggestion and not an answer. Sorry.

[Munchenhausen]

Aura, can we see a photo of your eyes?

There's a public photo out there that shows one of my eyes. Should be good enough.

You mean I have to find it myself?
So I have to actually work for reward?
I didn't fail all of my exams just to work!
tfw im the only one out of my friends who has to work 9-5 because of that fact

[bhtooefr]

http://www.hakodate-shirayuri.ed.jp/shirayuri/ (run it through Google Translate)

That's a boarding school, and before I had finished gleaning all the context I needed from Lilly's route, I was thinking maybe they went there. (Before JHS, Akira may well have.)

However, the school that was my previous and now current headcanon, http://sh.sendaishirayuri.net/en/ (the English site is much lighter on content, but had what I needed) is not.

Both schools do all years, it seems.

[Guest Poster]

I actually did some looking into private Catholic schools in Japan some time ago and I noticed that most of them were English-speaking international schools intended for children of diplomats who might be on the other end of the world a few years later. This clashes with Lilly's statement that many wealthy families sent their children there. Upper-class Japanese families would not be quick to send their children to an international school where courses were generally taught in English and kids from all parts of the world attended.

For my own headcanon, I chose to downplay the Catholic part and focus on the strict upper-class part of it since it meshes better with Lilly as we know her.

[bhtooefr]

I actually did some looking into private Catholic schools in Japan some time ago and I noticed that most of them were English-speaking international schools intended for children of diplomats who might be on the other end of the world a few years later. This clashes with Lilly's statement that many wealthy families sent their children there. Upper-class Japanese families would not be quick to send their children to an international school where courses were generally taught in English and kids from all parts of the world attended.

What about upper-class Japanese/Scottish families who might be on the other end of the world a few years later?

Sendai Shirayuri Gakuen does follow the April to March Japanese school year, for what it's worth.

Hakodate Shirayuri not only seems to follow the April to March school year, but the focus of their studies, outside of just general and college prep courses, seems to be a nursing course, not English.

[Guest Poster]

What about upper-class Japanese/Scottish families who might be on the other end of the world a few years later?

Lilly mentioned that many wealthy families sent their kids to that school. I think the Japanese/Scottish demographic who's also upper-class is actually far too small a group to tailor an expensive private school specifically to them. Most upper-class Japanese families, for whom the idea of being on the other side of the world a few years later would probably not be an issue, would probably want an education that would benefit their kid in the society they're currently part of.

Seeing that Lilly's acting like a rather straight Yamato Nadeshiko (at first glance at least), I got the impression the school was more focussed on traditional upbringing than religion, so it would still hold appeal to upper-class families who are not in the Satous' rather specific situation.

[bhtooefr]

Take a look at Sendai Shirayuri Gakuen, though, I don't think this is a dumping ground for diplomats' children. Everything seems to be aimed towards Japanese students, and they do have programs other than an English program. And their English-language site is severely truncated, you'd think that if they were actively courting the foreigner market as their primary market, they wouldn't do that.

And, I was wrong about them not having any boarding, I think... Google Translate isn't perfect, though, but this is from the admissions FAQ for the junior high school:

What are dormitory and interview?
This is the time of the dormitory interview, but it is in the order of entrance exam interview → → dormitory interview. I will give you the day time. The guidelines for applicants, there are items in the dormitory qualification. Because I judge in the form along the dormitory qualification, the decision of whether life in the dormitory, please face the interview Omotte consciousness to the communal life, to protect the rule, that master of its own.

And, this, from their English-language page on their high school... (I know, Lilly couldn't have gone THERE, due to being at Yamaku, but...)

The mission of Sendai Shirayuri Gakuen is to nurture pupils to live honourably before God. Through the promotion of humanity, moral values, and global awareness, pupils are guided toward looking beyond their own needs and fostering the spirit and capacity to help others.

For some reason, that reminds me of Lilly, she takes that to 11. (Or full retard, as the case may be.)

Edit: And, if they were in Natori or Iwanuma as I think... then Sendai Shirayuri Gakuen is on the wrong end of Sendai, unless they used the dorms ANYWAY, which I'm pretty sure they didn't. Damnit.

[brythain]

Then again, imaginary boarding school for imaginary girl who goes to imaginary academy… would be nice to find real-life analogues all the time, but what can we do?

Question: how much physical detail was provided for each character when working on art and story? Or were just the obvious plot points worked out?

[TheHivemind]

Dudes, take your conversations about where Lily went to school or whatever the hell this nonsense is about to a different thread. You got as much of an answer as you're going to get from this thread.