The village where Kaede lives is a typical
feudal community. The village perhaps has a hundred to two hundred people
in it at most. All of the villagers work to stay alive while warring
armies ravage the land -- you can see rice paddies and fields in the
distance.
In Kagome's time, this village has been incorporated into the sprawl of Tokyo. The
Sengoku Jidai version of Tokyo, Edo, was probably several hours walk
away. Edo was not renamed Tokyo until the Meiji restoration, which is
why the villagers have no idea where Kagome seems to have come from.
A river runs next to the village, providing clean drinking water and a place
to bathe. This river also feeds the rice paddies, so vital to the existance
of the village. The rice they grow is not necessarily all theirs; the
rice belongs to the daimyo of the land, who apportions it among the
villages on his land and gives the rest to his army.
An enormous stairway climbs up the hill. The red gate signifies that the area is
close to the spirit world. On top of the hill is the village shrine,
which is still present in Kagome's time.
Kagome's House
Kagome's house is in the older part of the shrine grounds. The house itself is typical modern Japanese architecture, and was probably built in the seventies if I'm not mistaken.
In the distance are modern buildings of Tokyo. Note that no where on the shrine grounds anywhere is there a place to park a car. It is highly unlikely that the Higurashi family owns a car, because almost everything will be within walking distance, and anything that isn't in walking distance can be reached by train.
The bottom floor has two bedrooms (I'd say one is Souta's, and one is Jii-chan's), the living room, the furo (bath), and the kitchen. Notice that the toilet is in a separate room from the sink and bathtub.
The living room contains a low table and a TV. It opens directly into the kitchen and also has rice paper sliding doors that open onto the courtyard outside.
The top floor has the master bedroom (we'll assume Mama sleeps there) and Kagome's bedroom. There is no bathroom on the second floor; that means Inuyasha climbed up the stairs naked in volume 24 of the manga ^_^
Kagome's bedroom is giving in loving black and white detail here. Her bed is pink in the anime and white with some sort of design in the manga.
For super nit-picky people, remember that the floor in the entire house is tatami. Tatami are Japanese woven mats. Also remember that no shoes, only house slippers, are worn beyond the foyer, in order to keep the tatami intact.
Old Shrine
In the Sengoku Jidai (feudal age) the landscape was peppered with ancient Shinto shrines. Many of them, like Kagome's, are still around today.
Walking up the long series of steps set into a hill (shrines are on a hill for a reason, since hills are closer to the kami-sama) brings us to an elaborate courtyard.
The tree on the far right is the Go Shimboku, the "god tree" or "sacred tree" where Inuyasha was pinned. The Japanese believe that trees radiate ki, the life energy of the world, so all trees are somewhat sacred. This particular tree's power is explained in the first Inuyasha movie.
Kikyo shot Inuyasha from the cobblestone courtyard between the second red gate and the short staircase to the upper level.
The modern and past times don't quite seem to match up, because in the modern times the well house is also on an upper level. Assuming that the well house is perhaps a hundred feet away from the Go Shimboku (in an area not seen in this image), one can assuming that some landscape reshuffling took place over five hundred years. The old shrine is still where it is now, but it has expanded to include the tree and the well. Hmmm, I wonder who could have done that, and why? ^_~
The New Shrine
On the same grounds where the old shrine stood is the new shrine, which has apparently expanded a bit to include the time-well and the Go Shimboku.
In the distance are the modern buildings of Tokyo. The fence on the right side surrounds the Goshimboku, and faces the street. Apparently, parts of the shrine were leveled at some point in the past in order to bring the shrine level with the Goshimboku. Wonder who did that too...? ^_~
