Experience The Japanese High School Romance Adventure! Real Six Love Events That Must Make Your Heart Leap♡

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“Wow! Is it really your school uniform in Japan?? It exactly looks like “Seihuku” in shojo manga.”

This is my real conversation with my friend from India. She is the huge fan of manga. “We actually wear seihuku that look like those in Shojo manga” I answered. “I thought it’s only in manga not in the real world” She told me. Then I realized at this moment that people from foreign countries do wonder about the real high school life in Japan.

So I decided to write about the real love events in Japanese high school that are described in Shojo manga as well. I’m going to write six events!

1: School festival (Bunaksai)
I guess many of manga fans know or hear about school festival. We call school festival Bunkasai in Japanese. In most of Shojo manga, Bunkasai is described as the big love event between boys and girls.

We often hold a program as a class. For example, we play theaters, make a game center or a haunted house in the classroom. My opinion is that preparing time for the school festival is more enjoyable time rather than the school festival itself.

Before the school festival begins, we spend a lot of time to prepare for it. It means that this is the big chance to talk with the boy you like and get closer to him. Also during this period, there are a lot of opportunities to get to know with people that you’ve never talked before.

For students who are in boys’ school or girls’ school, they may get excited and nervous in the school festival.　The reason is that many girls or boys from other school often come to see their bunkasai. Moreover, the school festival is known as a good timing to ask someone out! You might get be asked by someone as well!

2 : Valentine’s day
Everyone in the world knows that Valentine’s day is the romantic day! Love is all around at this time of year. However, the way to celebrate the Valentine’s day is very unique in Japan!
Women give chocolate to men as a gift to express their love. And in high schools, Valentine’s day is one of the biggest love events. Therefore, it is often described in Shojo manga. In manga, the main girl’s character is considering whether she will give chocolates to her crush or not.

The important things on Valentines’ day in high school are that When! and Where! girls give chocolates.
Speaking of the places to give chocolates, there are a lot of nice and unique places in high schools. For example, you could put chocolates into the boy’s shoe locker　(getabako). Boys may find the chocolates after opening their shoe locker. Isn’t it romantic? Other examples are you can give chocolates after school, during club activities (bukatsu), and break time and so on.

Besides before the Valentine’s day, there are widespread rumours about who are going to give chocolates to whom. High school students talk about it excitingly during lunch time (Obento time) or after school(houkago).

3 : Sekigae-new seat assignment
Do you know about the new seat assignment known as sekigae??
In Japanese high schools, we have a homeroom class and we take classes there. So class members are always same. And we change the seating arrangements once or twice in a term. Sekigae does not sound like a big event, but actually it is.

We draw lots for the seat assignment in most of the cases. But there is another way to decide the seats assignment that is called “Omiai”. Omiai originally means arranged meeting. I’ll explain about the procedure of omiai. Firstly, boys leave the classroom and wait outside. During this time, girls choose the seat. After girls decide their seat, they leave the room. Next boys enter the room and pick up the seats. Finally, boys and girls gather up in the classroom. They find out about classmates around their seats.

And there is a romantic chance if you get the very lucky seat.
Imagine that the person next to your seat is the boy or girl that you like! You will meet them everyday and probably chat together during classes. It is a great opportunity to get to know each other and come closer with him or her. In manga, the love between the girl and boy sometimes begin with the situation that their seat are next to each other.

However, we do not always have luck with sekigae…! In this topic, it means that your seat is far away from your crush. You would be disappointed and feel depressed. You might be jealous of the person who is next seat to your crush. But I believe that all would be nice memories of younger days (seishun) in the future.

4 : Club activities Bukatsu
What pops into your mind when you remember about your high school days? For me, the first thing is club activities: bukatsu. I belonged to the English club and chemistry club. What I like about bukatsu is that we could know and become friends with people from other grade. The reason is that we do bukatsu with the school members from all grades. Doing bukatsu is more like making friends for me. But of course there are many love chances!

Boys and girls sports team usually practice in a same place. So it is easy to look over and see each other.
If you belong to the girls tennis club, you could see the boys tennis team practicing on the next court. You may fall in love their enthusiasm and commitment. They always see each other’s achievements and efforts.　Love may happen!
See the movie below! It exactly describes this topic. The main girl and boy belong to the tennis club. This shows their love through bukatu.

Specifically, I would like to talk about the managers of sports club. In each sports club activities, we have the manager. Managers supervise equipment and records under the direction of a coach. Managers are usually women. They’re usually shown as the popular girls among boys. Most of the images of managers are cute and charming. I guess you get a sense of the love chances in bukatsu.

There could be the romance between managers and club members! We have bukatsu almost every day. Therefore they spend a lot of time together. Most importantly, they overcome the hardships and difficulties of bukatsu together. And managers are the person who always care and support club members. It is the comprehensible that they would become couple.

5 : School trip
It is very enjoyable to go on a trip with your classmates. The school trip is one of the most exciting and appealing events for all students. The famous place for the school trips is Kyoto. We spend a long time together during the trip. Through the travel, we can discover the classmate’s personalities that are unexpected and surprising.

If you wanna get closer to your boy or girl that you like, the school trip is one of the best timing that you can do! Firstly, there is usually free time during the school trip. It is the time that students can enjoy themselves freely. In most of the cases, we make a group and go sightseeing together. So you can ask someone to join your group. The longer time you spend together, the closer your relationships may become.

Moreover, there are some special events in the school trip. For example, we enter the graveyard one at a time on a dare (kimodameshi). Moreover, we go there with someone. It indicates that this is the time to ask someone to go with you! During the test of courage, it is possible to hold hands of him or her!

The exciting part of the school trip happens during night. We do girl talk (koibana). We talk about the romance at school, the boy you like, cool guys (ikemen), couples in the class, and dating you do. It’s all about the high school love. Some people often reveal about their secret feeling toward classmates. We just can’t keep calm during this time and we get excited! After koibana, we become a closer friend and deepen our friendships.

The thrilling thing during night is a patrol of teachers. We are not allowed to stay up late, but almost no one follows the rules! Teachers go in for a look-around during night-time. They check whether students are sleeping or not. It is very funny that we pretend to be sleeping as soon as we hear the sound of teacher’s coming. Overall we never get bored during a school trip. There are a lot of special event that we can’t experience at school.

6 : Commuting
You may or may not be surprised to hear that Japanese high school students often go to school by Train! I used to go to school by trains and it takes about 40 minutes.
I think many people wonder how the romance can occur in commuting. In fact, there could be!

We usually take a same train at same time every day. So there are always people on a train who take a same one. If you find a cool boy or a cute girl on the train you take, you have a chance.
There are ways to call attention to those people!
Being always in the same place on a train is a way to do this. It makes the possibility that the person would notice you increase. They will see you every day and may be conscious of you.

Another way is to look at that person until they notice. Then look away from him or her. It is very nervous (doki doki!) moment. Eventually they would probably notice you…!
The final way is to give letters to that person. Write your love and tell them! This is very challenging and you need courage to take action. But before we graduated from high school, we should show our love.

Love in commuting does not always happen on a train. Do you know about the “couple road” in high schools? We walk on the way from high school to nearest station after school. And there is a road called “couple road” in some high schools.

This is the road only couples are allowed to walk in. It is a little longer than the usual way. Every students wish to walk couple road while they are in high school…! It is a bit cruel for people who don’t have boyfriends or girlfriends. On the other hand, couples enjoy walking this road!

I think there are many love points (munekyun) in high school. That is one of the reasons for many shojo mangas take place in high school. In this article, I’ve explained about real 6 love events in Japanese high school.

Are they as same as your images you had or not? Are these events different from your high school of your countries? I hope you feel like you become a Japanese high school student through this reading! And I wish this article would help you to enjoy your manga reading more!

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High school love

Author

Udon-chan

18 high school student. been in the international school in India for a year. The experience there made me realize how unique and powerful the Japanese pop culture is. I want to spread the kawaii culture across the globe through the social media. My favorite manga is “Kimi ni Todoke”. I love Udon.

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