A Look at the Japanese Gardens in Anime Series
When you start watching anime, there is a good chance that you will notice that many of the anime have significant scenes that take place in the gardens or that gardens make up an important part of the scenery. You might be more used to the Western idea of a garden as something that has vegetables planted in, or of orderly rows flowers, and seeing a Japanese garden might be a little odd at first. If you have ever wondered about the stark beauty of the Japanese gardens that show up in anime, take a look at a few facts that can help you feel more at home!
For instance, one thing that you will notice if you watch the famous shojo anime Fruits Basket, you’ll find that there are several scenes that take place at the Sohma family compound, where there is a very stark garden that seems to consist of raked gravel, large stones that dot the landscape and sparse trees. In one famous scene, Tohru, the heroine, trips and falls into the garden. While the scene was certainly not pleasant for Hatori, who she fell on, you can imagine that the consternation of the Sohma family’s gardener was even greater!
The Japanese garden that is depicted in the Fruits Basket anime is one that is known as a karesansui garden, that is, a garden that is representative of a particular landscape but is depicted in a very abstract fashion. Stone and gravel are often raked into to precise rows, all making a beautifully symmetrical pattern that encourages quiet contemplation and meditation.
This is not to say that Japanese gardens can’t be planted with lush vegetation and quite physically beautiful, as well. Take for example, the young emperor Hotohori’s garden, which is the scene of several memorable scenes in the anime Fushigi Yuugi. The imperial gardens portrayed here are very meticulously tended, and with the large pools, may very well indicate that this is a tsukiyama garden.
A tsukiyama garden is one that might use small structures like ponds, streams or hills to recreate real landscapes, and the care that was taken to recreate the landscape in miniature can often be very great. Fushigi Yuugi depicts the adventures of the young Miaka as she travels through a landscape that resembles ancient China, making it clear that these gardens were popular all over Asia.
Even if the gardens you see in anime are not as well tended as the imperial gardens in Fushigi Yuugi, or the one found in the Sohma compound in Fruits Basket, you’ll see that they can still play an important part. In the anime Ranma 1/2, for instance, many of the episodes start with Ranma practicing martial arts in the back yard with his father. While the garden of the Tendo dojo is not terribly fancy, it still has many of the hallmarks of a traditional Japanese garden, including a fair-sized koi pond.
Japanese gardens will frequently feature water, whether in the form of a small pond or in larger gardens in the form of streams or waterfalls. In some cases, the water is wide enough that a boat or a bridge is needed to cross it, and in the case of chaniwa gardens, which centers around the tea ceremony, stepping stones maybe used to reach your destination.
The next time you watch some anime, take a look and see what Japanese gardens you can spot!
