To the classroom of the “everyday” seen in anime — the “Japanese High School Tour in Hiji Sogo” created by university and high school students

The APU College of Sustainability and Tourism emphasizes practicum in the local field, and as part of this it has run student-led problem-solving projects (Field Practicum) continuously with the Hiji Town Hall since fiscal 2023. This article is a record of one of those fiscal 2026 projects: the initiative of the Hiji Town Real Experience Tour Team.

Contents

1. The starting point of the plan

2. A course correction from the town-tour idea

3. What we realized: the value of a high school’s “everyday”

4. Building it with the high schoolers

5. The exchange on the day

6. The change in the high schoolers shown in the survey

7. Going forward

1 The starting point of the plan

This plan was created by four students who worked on Hiji Town’s challenges in the APU course “Field Practicum.” Field Practicum is a hands-on class in which students actually enter the community and work on solving local challenges. The team was made up of two Japanese students and two international students from Indonesia and South Korea.

What the team focused on was Hiji Sogo High School, which is rooted in the community and has sent out people who carry the region forward. Hiji Town has no university, and high schoolers have limited chances to interact with university and international students. Introducing and explaining your own school and town to someone from outside — through that experience, students come to understand the good points of their hometown in their own words and deepen their attachment. Creating such opportunities for exchange might also connect to the region’s future. The team placed this hypothesis at the origin of the plan and, through discussions with the Hiji Town Hall in April, worked up the concept and firmed the plan’s framework around “exchange between international students and high schoolers.”

2 A course correction from the town-tour idea

The first thing they gave shape to was a tour in which high schoolers guide international students around the town of Hiji. At the first meeting held at Hiji Sogo High School on May 20, the team presented this idea to the school. However, as they examined it, challenges came into view. A plan involving off-campus movement requires preparing safety measures — above all heat-stroke countermeasures in summer — with the understanding of guardians. Given the schedule to implementation, it was realistically difficult. Judging so, the team withdrew the town-tour idea and decided to rework the concept.

3 What we realized: the value of a high school’s “everyday”

What the team recalled while reworking the concept was their experience actually visiting Hiji Sogo High School before the plan. Classrooms, a pool, a baseball field, club activities. The scenery of a Japanese high school they had seen in anime was right there as it was. Many young people overseas take an interest in Japanese high schools through anime, but even while studying in Japan they have almost no chance to encounter a Japanese school. Being able to notice this need — which no one had put into words as something they wanted — was because the mixed team including international students had actually gone to the site.

What international students want to experience might lie not only in the town but within the high schoolers’ “everyday” itself. A plan completed on campus could reduce the summer heat-stroke risk they were worried about and solve the safety challenges of movement. Without blurring the purpose, the team reworked the plan into an on-campus tour. At the second meeting on June 24 the on-campus tour idea was approved, and partly because the teachers reached out to students, ten second-year high schoolers gathered as participants. The implementation date was set for July 8.

4 Building it with the high schoolers

What was decisive in advancing the plan was the warm cooperation of the teachers at Hiji Sogo High School. Adjusting classrooms and the range of movement, watching over the day, confirming the policy on photography. Repeating meetings to align our thinking, we built together a form that could be carried out safely within the school.

“Co-creation,” in which high schoolers take part from the planning stage, was the concept from the start. The content of the day’s guiding and the exchange was thought up by the high schoolers and the team members together. Guiding your own school in your own words. By trying to convey it to someone, you notice anew the appeal of your alma mater and hometown. The guide role carried such an aim.

The day’s composition was four groups, each of five to six people: one team member, two international students, and two to three high schoolers. Because we placed one team member in every group, even though the number of international students fluctuated until the last minute, we could respond without changing the number of groups or the roles. English ability was not a participation condition. Since international students fluent in Japanese also took part, we told the high schoolers beforehand that “it’s fine even if you can’t speak English.”

5 The exchange on the day

Opening at 15:30 on July 8, after explaining the plan in both Japanese and English, participants introduced themselves within their groups and set off on the on-campus tour in which the high schoolers guide the international students. The high schoolers guided the classrooms, facilities, and club-activity spaces in their own words, and the team members provided language support.

Even facilities that are ordinary to the high schoolers, such as the hallway water fountains and the classroom blackboards, looked fresh to the international students. The guiding high schoolers, too, came to see their familiar school building with new eyes through the international students’ reactions.

In the latter half, splitting into two groups at a time, they worked on blackboard art and origami in an alternating schedule of two 20-minute rounds. On the blackboard, along with the words “APU × HIJI INTERNATIONAL TOUR,” each country’s flag, airplanes, and a picture of the earth were drawn in chalk. At 17:30, the event closed with guidance on the post-event survey. The tour finished safely as scheduled.

6 The change in the high schoolers shown in the survey

In this tour, taking pre- and post-surveys under the same conditions to confirm the change in participants was also designed as part of the activity. Where change clearly appeared in the high schoolers’ answers was in how they approach international exchange. The sense that “you can do international exchange even if you’re not good at English” rose compared with before, and voices such as “I want to guide various other places” were also raised. In the post-survey, 9 of the 10 gave the highest rating on every evaluation item.

What stood out in the international students’ surveys fell broadly into three. First, the size and design of the school building and facilities such as the baseball and soccer fields. Second, culture unique to Japanese schools, such as uniforms, club rooms, and music rooms. Third, the exchange experience itself of touring the school guided by high schoolers and making blackboard art together. Voices such as “I want to join club activities” and “I want to improve my Japanese and come to Hiji again” were also received. From the teachers who watched over it came the words, “We got to see smiles you don’t see in school life.”

After the event, the participating high schoolers sent proposals for the next plan via social media: games to deepen the exchange, and a tour in which the high schoolers themselves serve as guides to not only sightseeing spots but also the shops they usually stop by. These were in the spirit of “we want international students to experience the high schoolers’ everyday,” and there was also the voice, “I want to visit APU.”

7 Going forward

On July 15, a Field Practicum results briefing was held at the Hiji Town Hall, where the team reported the results of the activity and proposed an exchange model for continuing this plan in Hiji Town.

Seen through the eyes of international students, value that had not been visible until now is found in the school and community the high schoolers had taken for granted. And that discovery was born precisely because high schoolers and university students created the plan together. This form of co-creation set at a high school should be usable in any community that has a school.