How much are high schools in Japan like in the Anime?

#anime #japan #school

I don't know if the hashtags will ping this in mastadon or not. I have been marveling at the portrayed high school system in big cities in Japan in the various hundreds of anime set there, and I just wondered how fake it is. Or how much is just a different experience.

So, I grew up rural in the US. We all rode a school bus, and there were 2 runs, and earlier one for High school and a later one for elementary school, so the high school students could stay after for maybe 40 minutes and catch a later bus. Once you got to 16 you might get your parents to buy you a car, or you might work enough to buy one and then might be able to drive to school. But this was only maybe 25 percent of the students.

When in school you did have a homeroom for 5 minutes in the morning, but then went to different rooms for each class period. There were a couple of clubs and sports teams (treated differently) but nothing like the club recruitment shown in anime. (that was way more like college).

Almost no one brought their lunch, and as far as I remember everyone always ate in the cafeteria. I think if you tried to eat in a classroom you'd likely get in trouble.

If you were going to not take the bus and go out with friends or whatever after school, you needed someone to drive, and you needed to let your parents know. All the after school things are a lot more like college to me.

Then the school festivals? Those have to be basically made up for anime right? So exaggerated as to be fake I mean. We might have had an open house where late after school parents met teachers and there might me like a couple pictures on the wall from an art class or something. No several days school shuts down to have the random public come to a festival with students making food(selling?) putting on plays, concerts etc...

All our plays and concerts were separated and a specific event that were not advertised outside of parents and relatives.

In writing this, I realized I don't know how much is from being set in a huge city (would a NYC school be more like anime?) or from Japan being different or exaggerating for the sake of story in the Anime.

So - if you know in Japan :

In high school is it actually common for students to come really early or stay till sunset for rabdom reasons ranging from clubs to it's raining to boredom to just wandering around?

Do students usually have one classroom they're assigned to for the year? Do the teachers rotate or does one teacher teach all subjects (like elementary in my schooling)?

And are the students just allowed to set their schedule outside of school and just show up home to crash at night?