Jshk - Blog Posts

we as a fandom completely glossed over this, *I* MANAGED TO COMPLETELY NOT NOTICE THIS BUT LOOK. TERU BACKSTORY PEEK

this is so sad... back then he was probably just like kou, not wanting to see supernaturals as inhumane monsters but if he doesn't do that he won't be able to protect his only family 😭😭

looking at the panel, it seems that the supernatural and the girl were probably friends but (maybe like mitsuba?) the supernatural tried to harm the girl and so teru had to kill them while hearing both the girl pleading and crying and the supernatural apologizing... even if he was persuaded for a moment he couldn't have gone along with it because he has a job to finish.

Teru's way of thinking is a DEFENSE MECHANISM. If he doesn't see supernaturals as inhumane beings, then he won't be able to protect his family. If he doesn't work hard enough, Kou would start doubting, Tiara might get taken to be trained as an exorcist.

His way of thinking isn't out of hatred, it's deep-rooted fear.

(And he himself probably hasn't realized it.)

okay so I wanted to update this bc I had another idea (thanks to @/sakuraswifee's theory!!!! you can read it first to understand this better) that train to the far shore mention really got me TRIPPIN. it is so good.

anyways, so long story short, yk one of the reasons kou wants to be an exorcist is to help nene with her lifespan, and also for hanako and his brother BUT he doesn't even mention mitsuba, anything about him to his brother which is sorta telling especially since hes trying really hard to figure out how to help him become human.

and yk what's MORE telling? he ignores his brother's worried texts in favor of being with mitsuba. HHHHHHHUUUUUMMMM

but if we look here at the clock keepers arc, kou aged, which is a total contradiction for the mtsk dying together yk

ANOTHER BUT. tsuchigomori said that there was one kid who changed his future (amane/hanako) and it's not revealed how, and depending on what it entails, it could give this theory credibility or crash it down

and we have no backstory on why yashiro manages to be able to break yorishiros other than bc she's a kannagi (like is her family ancestry's kannagi too?) but it's the reason aoi and her managed to switch lifespans because aoi's a kannagi too, and..... the minamoto clan... aren't kannagis...but they still concern supernatural stuff.

so are you picking up what im putting down rn? yep thats right!!!! it's a hard decision for kou to make but he did say he'll always be on nene's side :') and he even defied his own brother for it...he's so sweet ..

yashiro wouldnt want kou to sacrifice himself but then again it's his choice to literally agree to run away with mitsuba and basically just died with him

NENE AND KOU MAAAAY EXCHANGE LIFESPANS!!! so if not yorishiro HE WILL DIE WITH HIM

that's it for my yap session remember this is just me being delusional RAAAAAAHHH THIS IS REAL THIS IS REAL IN MY HEARTT

mitsukou has been lowkey eating my brain (once again) and this will probably sound stupid blabbering but im gonna try to make myself sound convincing. and in my defense this was just a random thought that popped up on my mind.

what if the thing about natsuhiko saying the way for a human to become a supernatural is to become a yorishiro? I mean think about it, what else is sumire other than a supernatural? If she just died normally instead of becoming a yorishiro she would've ended up disappearing along with other girls under the red house.

at first, I thought natsuhiko planned on saying it to kou so it could trigger something but he looks surprised here so I doubt it now but there's still a possibility

i think his face reads as "ooooh an unexpected reaction but I'll take it"

even if he was really mean that time he probably really did care about mitsuba someway and was hoping for him to make kou his yorishiro

AAAND another reach maybe that's why kou asked him out on a date (other than just wanting to hang out with him, ofc) like so he could maybe get more important to mitsuba and make him his yorishiro!

and get this, if he becomes mitsuba's yorishiro, nene LITERALLY wouldn't be able to destroy him at all, thus allowing her to live!!!! two birds with one stone, if you will

(but you could say then 'wouldn't the broadcasting trio not like that?' which is true but they did they'll do ANYTHING to make yashiro destroy every yorishiro, possibly by threatening her and especially looking at the sumire incident she wouldn't want that to happen again AND THE LOWKEY PARALLELS OF WHAT HAPPENED WITH SUMIRE AND HAKUBO WITH THE MITSUKOU CHAPTER. (with the cannibalism and all))

and it could be another reason why kou was so shocked at him when he asked to be exorcised (cough instead of making him his yorishiro cough)

BUUUUUT that is just inherent yapping so that's that. just wanted to get my silly ramblings out there pls dont take it too seriously thank u.

"no reason, huh?" GRRRRRRRRREEEAAAASHAHHSHSHSHSHWBSBSBBSNSNSJS

kou yorishiro is real guys that's why he asked mitsuba to go to the festival with him (so mitsuba has more of a reason to live ?) IDK ITS JUST REAL

hopefully hopefully s3 ends at the pizza party chapter/end of the red house arc bc any more than that and they'll have to make adjustments AGAIN or rush it (or maybe since it said grim reaper arc maybe that's the only part they'll be covering (like it'll only have 5 eps or something)

but if it ends at the end of the red house arc it'll be too short for 12 eps soooo YOUNG EXORCIST ANIMATED HELL YEAH

hananene and mitsukou parallel part 2(72538272) (maybe this one lowkey a stretch but ykw hell yeah)

wyd if your crush tells you they're okay with dying

threaten them

btw this was nene's reaction to hanako confessing that

hummmmmmm and mitsuba doesn't know (yet) about kou (and his whole complex) so what conclusion would he possibly make hummmmm

maybe someone pointed this out already but this hananene and mitsukou parallel goes insanely hard

Small and probably meaningless theory that somebody has probably already thought of!!

I'm gonna get straight to the point since I don't really need a big post since the theory is self-explanatory

Hanako of the opera AU ends with Kou and Mitsuba basically running away from the opera (or to be fair, Kou kidnapping Mitsuba💀)

Then we get this in chapter 118, which is basically Mitsuba saying, "Hey my platonic friend, let's run away together in a platonic way so that we can forget that we're doomed asf(platonically)".

The panel shows a train. They could've drawn snacks or silly stuff, but they chose a train?? What's the only other time a train has shown up in tbhk?

To finish off, Kou has been hinted at becoming a supernatural multiple times. One of my favorite examples is the Ghost Hotel AU..

...it's canon that in this AU exorcists are still a thing, because Teru is one...but Kou isn't one? And what does Teru say he's doing in this AU? Searching for his little brother.

Honestly, seems like foreshadowing lol

(And btw, as a fandom, we ignore HOTO way too much)

maybe someone pointed this out already but this hananene and mitsukou parallel goes insanely hard

tbhk 125 spoilers!!!

HEAR ME OUT on past kako duuuudddeeee

he's giving father🤞🤞🙏🙏🙏

I looove this quiz!!!!!! AND HELL YEAAAHHHHHHH I GOT MITSUBA HELL YEAH I really do kin him💯💯💯💯 but a funnier thing I realized is that I was debating on the good poker face thing (until I eventually decided that no I don't really) and the answer leads to aoi WHICH IS ANOTHER KIN OF MINE??!!! this quiz is too good gang...🙏 thank u for sharing this op

and it's quite interesting how similar teru and hanako are! two sides of the same coin if you will, which I find really ironic

I really love this little quiz

Because it tells us a LOT about each character:

Straight off the bat, Akane, Natsuhiko, Aoi, Mitsuba, Teru, Hanako, Tsuchigomori and Sakura all have secrets.

This was actually incredible foreshadowing for characters like Natsuhiko and Mitsuba, whose secrets were revealed in later chapters.

Some are more obvious, like Hanako's secret, and some we have yet to discover, such as Tsuchigomori's, Sakura's and Teru's (unless his crush counts as the secret).

Now for the fun stuff :)

Hanako:

- He likes exercising! Unsurprising with how much fun he was having during the picture perfect arc while in pe.

- He would not be the first to confess, yippee more foreshadowing

He's generally an action over words guy, and probably gets shy actually needing to express his feelings verbally.

Teru:

- He'd also wait for a confession! It's a pretty common topic of debate so I'm happy there's an answer, and also the better answer. It adds more depth to his character.

- He's also a good leader.. he is charismatic but "good" as in "people like him as their leader" is debatable.

Akane:

- Ngl, not much is new. He too likes exercising, and is stubborn especially when confessing.

Natsuhiko:

- He's not actually that stubborn! The rest is well known

Tsuchigomori:

- He dislikes exercising, which is perfectly in character I love that for him (⁠｡⁠ﾉ⁠ω⁠＼⁠｡⁠).

- He's curious! That must be hell when you're the fifth wonder.

Both him and Sakura are dog people, which surprised me for half a second before I thought about it:

Yeah no damn wonder.

Sakura:

- She's not curious! If I was an immortal being who knew practically everything I don't think I'd be too curious either, so fair

Aoi:

- She's a cat person, which is rather sad actually (as they dislike her)

- She has a good poker face ofc

Mitsuba:

- He hates exercising yay

- He is a cat person. *Air punch*

- He has a terrible poker face, which I think I need to draw now actually

Mokkes:

- They like sciences over liberal arts. huh.

Tsukasa:

- He isn't easily sacred!

- Likes science, he did use it to create an artificial spirit, so that tracks

Nene:

- Susceptible to trends, which we've seen first hand with the mokke hat

- She takes care of others more than they take care of her :(

Yako:

- Taken care of as she should be

Kou:

- Eats strategically

- He doesn't care much for trends, as Mitsuba loves pointing out

Shijima:

- She eats the best part of her meal first, that doesn't say too much but it's a cute detail :D

That's all! I'm the Aoi type btw (￣y▽,￣)╭

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●

omgggg thank you so much I will keep it in mind!!! <33

does anyone have an idea on what the tbhk timeline could be. atleast like just in their school? the months? like when the show started it was in the middle of the school year right? so maybe august?? if anyone has headcannons I'd be glad for some help

does anyone have an idea on what the tbhk timeline could be. atleast like just in their school? the months? like when the show started it was in the middle of the school year right? so maybe august?? if anyone has headcannons I'd be glad for some help

Heavy love ^^ (or something like that...)

compilation of distressed kou pics that match my feelings of doing homework……

tbhk s2 ended put me back in the suicide risk watch

HOLY SHIT

We're getting the grim reaper arc animated in July I will explode

were born hungry

The dark truth of the Clock Keepers - Theory

I will be talking about how there's much more to the Clock Keepers and how they are an active danger to everyone else, and and an even more terrible threat than even the pit god, at that.

For an introduction, Akane agrees: The biggest threat to the students are the Clock Keepers. But it's a much bigger threat that anyone would expect.

This arc is about the Clock Keepers changing the timeline that we know of into a new one, everything has gone wrong and Nene is the only one left.

But it would seem it goes much deeper than that. After all, the timeline we know of isn't even the original one.

For starters, Akane explains that while there are some who are able to regain their memories of the 'Old World', they would be rewritten with memories of the 'New World'. It's specific for 3 days due to the Festival being 3 days long, an event where the timeflow becomes unstable.

During the Festival Season of 1968, Yugi Amane attempts to get the clock moving so he can manipulate time, and Hanako states that he HAD to get it moving until the end of the School Festival, but he can't remember anything about the clock.

Sounds familiar?

To get to the point, Yugi Amane of 1968 had the memories of a 'previous world', and tried to fix the clock so he can go back. But he failed to do so, and, as a result, forgot everything about the clock.

Until Chapter 124, this is also seemingly supported by Teru and Akane.

Even if they may not be aware, their impressions are right. It's extremely unlikely that this is the first time the Clock Keepers altered time, like playing 'God'.

But now, it's even further confirmed by Chapter 124.

The past has indeed been changed several times. But why do so many people have to suffer in this way, have their souls cut and forever bound to the Boundary, some even going crazy as a result. In a way, it sounds like something the pit god would do, isn't it?

But *why* would the Clock Keepers do that? There's an easy answer. They need to bend the rules. At first glance, the Clock Keepers seem overpowered, unbeatable. They can seemingly turn back time on a whim with no repercussions- But we know for a fact that's not true.

After all, Shijima herself states it. Each Boundary of the School Mystery is bound by rules. Mysteries can't just do whatever they like- There are rules they have to respect. Especially when it comes to such an overpowered ability like messing with time, there has to be a major weakness or price to pay for it, a drawback that Kako discovered how to circumvent. Such an overpowered ability, unregulated? No way.

After all, it's not only the Clock Keepers' servants that are clockwork dolls, they themselves are also clockwork dolls.

Kako cutting up souls everytime the past is changed is not a coincidence. It's so he can have someone else pay for the price of altering time.

Wouldn't that be why Kako decided to travel to 1968, to the time he would find a 12 year old who is so desperate to turn back time?

After all, it's so much easier to find a human willing to pay the price in your stead. Especially if it's a child motivated by desperation. For every timeline change, someone has to sacrifice something. But Kako had found an easier way: Just sacrifice someone else.

Some are able to accept reality as it is and just dutifully abide by the Clock Keepers' rules as their masters, like the cat, and some don't and end up crazy, like the broken doll. Whether from the past, future or another world, they're all the same- They all used to be humans.

This cruel practice is so Kako is freely able to play 'God' without worrying about the rules every mystery has to abide to, and it's even solidified by the victims who can't recall the circumstances themselves. It's a practice that, if revealed, exposes the Clock Keepers' limits.

Why do you think Kako had asked Akane to stay alive until they wake up? Because if all else failed, the Clock Keepers would be able to exchange Akane's soul to turn back time once more. It's literally Akane that's a safety net, not just the Yorishiro.

Wouldn't that also explain why the position of the Clock Keeper of the Present is vacant and only filled by humans?

Why was that position vacant until they found Akane, a boy who similarly wanted the power to control time? The "Clock Keeper of the Present" is simply a disposable asset.

But now, Kako messed up big time. He used time as his playground to attempt to get rid of an actual God, one who now is aware of the danger the Clock poses.

The consequences for this will be lethal for the Clock Keepers, ones who treat time and lives so lightly, and karmic retribution will come swiftly.

As final words, it would seem that Nene finding the truth behind the dolls behind finding Kako is done on purpose so she cannot fall in the Clock Keepers' trap and play her cards right.

Kako will not be able to get away with treating this world as his personal playground.

The death of a dream

I think for the first time I will talk about Shijima, even if her story is one of the ones that moves me the most.

Seeing her trying for the last time to do what she loves the most, and trying to immortalize it with lines and colors on paper. The tower, crooked, as if representing her trying to use all the effort she has to stay upright, even if the tower could fall at any moment. And even if it did fall, she would still be there, inside that tower, where her happiness would live.

Her desire to be happy didn't exactly only create another world, but another version of herself, because in her eyes the world is good and she was the one who couldn't keep up, so she recreated herself in a world where it would be possible to be happy, even in a tower about to fall.

Imagining herself in another world, in another place… in a place where she could be herself, even if it wasn't real, still brought joy.

Shijima's story also reminds me of the first Harry Potter book. The orphan boy who one day found a magic mirror that reflected what he most desired. He saw his parents, who had died to save him when he was a baby.

illustration by TomScribble

And Harry went there every night and day, over and over again, to be by their side, to see them smile for the first and countless times. Until Dumbledore, the professor, discovered and told him that dreams bring us joy, take us to the sweetest and deepest pleasure of living what we could never.

But it wasn't worth it to always be dreaming and forgetting to live.

At that time, it didn't make sense to me. Who would choose to stay in the real world? But the truth is that dreaming kills your hopes little by little.

Until you have none left.

Mei dreamed that Shijima would live, she did what had to be done, she stayed in the dream that Shijima made for her, but she never came back.

The wish that she had lost hope.

Tsukasa gave her the freedom to finally have enough strength to stop dreaming.

Shijima never stopped smiling, not because she was resigned to death, but because she knew that the dream would one day come to an end, but she wanted at least one version of her to be happy.

The tower, Shijima's last painting, was the representation of the happiness that she wanted to immortalize.

She was happy while she was alive, and she became eternal in the form that she loved most, painting.

Stopping dreaming is so hard. Watching the world fall apart makes it feel like you're falling apart with it. But it's necessary.

It's better to stop dreaming before you lose hope.

When hope dies, not even the world of dreams makes sense anymore.

Nothing does.

One day Harry Potter would realize that his parents were already dead, and he would have died with them if he had just kept dreaming about something he could never have.

But, just like Shijima, he knew the right moment to break the world of dreams. The boy who found the magic mirror that had been hidden in the deepest part of the castle, for having killed the hope of so many others.

Mei thought that "killing" Shijima would be the best way to break the dream

But killing her would bring nothing but negative feelings. Killing a dream won't bring you peace.

Accepting that it was good while it lasted will bring you true freedom. Like what actually happened.

She accepted that the dream was over, and went to face reality. Shijima accepted death, and Mei accepted that she is the part of Shijima that she wanted to live and be remembered, no matter how she was remembered.

I love how Aidairo make reality so raw and strong and how it reflects so well on them. How Amane "killed" his dreams, when he lost hope, how he quickly realized that the world was fake.

Because that happiness was so unreal to him.

Even if Mei had put him in a world where it would be just him and Tsukasa, happy as it should have been in the past, he would have known it was fake.

Because he no longer had hope, he killed hope when he raised the knife to Tsukasa.

When he spent so much time trying to change the past, trying to make things work out, trying to save his brother at all costs and at any sacrifice.

When he realized that going to the moon was no longer possible.

When he decided not to go anywhere.

He didn't give Tsukasa his freedom, like Mei gave Shijima - even if forced initially - or, Tsukasa himself didn't give Amane the freedom to leave, when he decided to sacrifice himself.

Amane was supposed to die.

Shijima was supposed to die.

But dreams made they postpone it.

In the end, reality still came.

And it's never easy. But at least accepting it completely is less painful than dreaming and losing everything in the end.

Seeing that none of it was real.

You're now drowning in reality and embracing the pain of a dream that never happened, but that you miss. And since that dream never came true, you lose hope.

What's there for you now besides reality?

It doesn't matter, you're not going anywhere.

Like Dumbledore said,

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live”

Sometimes, it takes a while to accept even that.

But it's needed.

Mitsuba is my baby

is anyone else freaking out over the fact that next week's tbhk episode title is picture perfect aka THE ARC NAME IN THE MANGA AAAAHHH

Love how Akane is insane so he just rip in it half cause 'its faster' while Mei secretly want to be a master at pealing oranges, hence why she drew Shijima with the very important skill of perfectly pealing an orange.

Is kind of funny to picture Aoi delicately pealing an orange while Teru destroys the thing like a little kid.

Kou can peal it like a pro chef and Yako is a queen as always. She is beauty, she is grace.

been writing a sorta plotless terukaneaoi fic and my confusion is increasing while doing so because . What do I do next . this is why you always have an outline ready, kids.

then again this will just be a silly one shot. if anyone is interested I'll be reblogging w the fic link whenever hehe

They’re so silly

Platonic Akanene is so silly omg. Underrated duo istg. They’re besties your honor. Plus canonly they’ve know each other for like four years and are like in the same friend group cause Aoi.

mitsukou has been lowkey eating my brain (once again) and this will probably sound stupid blabbering but im gonna try to make myself sound convincing. and in my defense this was just a random thought that popped up on my mind.

what if the thing about natsuhiko saying the way for a human to become a supernatural is to become a yorishiro? I mean think about it, what else is sumire other than a supernatural? If she just died normally instead of becoming a yorishiro she would've ended up disappearing along with other girls under the red house.

at first, I thought natsuhiko planned on saying it to kou so it could trigger something but he looks surprised here so I doubt it now but there's still a possibility

i think his face reads as "ooooh an unexpected reaction but I'll take it"

even if he was really mean that time he probably really did care about mitsuba someway and was hoping for him to make kou his yorishiro

AAAND another reach maybe that's why kou asked him out on a date (other than just wanting to hang out with him, ofc) like so he could maybe get more important to mitsuba and make him his yorishiro!

and get this, if he becomes mitsuba's yorishiro, nene LITERALLY wouldn't be able to destroy him at all, thus allowing her to live!!!! two birds with one stone, if you will

(but you could say then 'wouldn't the broadcasting trio not like that?' which is true but they did they'll do ANYTHING to make yashiro destroy every yorishiro, possibly by threatening her and especially looking at the sumire incident she wouldn't want that to happen again AND THE LOWKEY PARALLELS OF WHAT HAPPENED WITH SUMIRE AND HAKUBO WITH THE MITSUKOU CHAPTER. (with the cannibalism and all))

and it could be another reason why kou was so shocked at him when he asked to be exorcised (cough instead of making him his yorishiro cough)

BUUUUUT that is just inherent yapping so that's that. just wanted to get my silly ramblings out there pls dont take it too seriously thank u.

I can't help but find it so ridiculous how Hanako literally planned for Aoi to die and yet they're both having a normal conversation as they're going to the existential version of nowhere.

"You may have done some real shady stuff and left me to die behind someone's back, but what do you think of my friend?"

ON GOD when we get another mitsukou chapter i WILL make a mitsukou animatic

On A Soldier Falling In Love and isn't god so cruel to put them so close together and yet so far? they are parallel lines; destined to take each step together and yet never intersect

that's fair but like we don't really know what's going on behind the scenes so we don't have much of a day on how close they are. I don't think they're shallow, I think it's just that yokoo and satou are close friends but that's about it; I guess that's what you're saying?

in ashk, they literally forgot each other's first names lmao so yeah

they just need more time together; and personally I think them not being the type of ship to sacrifice themselves for each other is more of a reason for them being healthy rather than the opposite iykwim

ive been seeing a lot of tbhk ship analysis' and ive come to the conclusion that almost every single tbhk ship has something wrong it. something fucked up

OHHH MY GOD I LOVE YOUR ANALYSIS!!! your predictions are sooo good!!!!!!!

also, idek much about germany culture AT ALL but when people were like "let's theorize where they're from" I was like "isn't it germany" like???? thank u for reaffirming my guess because honestly it was just something out of my ass like its vibes were giving germany idk🔥🔥🔥

Let's talk about the clock keepers boundary!

(warning: spoilers until chapter 124!!)

I've had some guess on where they could be from so let's look at what we have in the manga for now. I will keep things on surface level for the most part but it's just some things I noticed!

The first mention of the town is in chapter 111, where we finally have a view on their boundary.

A lot of fans already guessed from their clothes that they were not from Japan, this panel definitely confirms it and even points more precizely to a European country, mostly Western Europe. And also a country where Winter with snow exist.

It's also not an English speaking country, since Akane cannot understand the language and we know he has english classes at school.

Now there are several things we can look at to have more clues!

First, the architecture.

This type of house is called Timbered framed houses. It’s important to note that the roofs on those houses are really really sharp here. Which means theywere built for snow, so it can slide off the roofs more easily. The trees are also pines, something that can be found in a lot of Europe. (wood was needed to be able to create houses made of wood/with visible Framework( Little note: I know Italy was a guess for a lot of person because of the link to Pinocchio, but Italy main material for houses is stone not wood. And it is also not known for its winter.)

Here we can also see bricks which is something more associated to countries like Germany, Belgium or the Nertherlands, we don't have the colors so we can't guess from which minerals it was made for now.

But we have even more informations when we look at chapter 124!

The bridge and tower may be inspired by a fortified city, something that you could find A LOT in Western Europe during the middle age, not a lot of cities still have their entire walls but you can still see it if you go into old medieval towns. We can also see something that looks like a Belfry on several panels. Towers used mostly to indicate each passing hour of the day (may be a campanile or a bell tower (the difference is wether it's linked to religion or not basically)

Second! Let's do a little bit of clock making history!

I won't go into details, but there are some countries to point for this. England, The Netherlands and Germany. We already took out England before and we can easily erase Nertherlands from the list with the next step (my favorite one).

The food! I already had my suspicions confirmed with this bonus art from volume 22.

First of all, they have tea which is not something that was in Europe before the XVII century. But let's look at the sweets they have here.

Chocolates which look close to Belgian chocolate ( I say Belgian but other countries' chocolate is pretty close to it) , Christstollen Cake, and Spiztbuden.

We have even more to look at with the new chapter! And they confirm that it's indeed a stollen cake.

With all these foods it's now pretty obvious which area the clock keepers are inspired from.

Stollen cakes are German cakes, ginger cookies are from Germany too. I will also add that there is a chance the crescent moon cookies are VanilleKipferl. We have another panel showing Sausages and bread. Only the Almond is something not typical from Germany but which clearly was all over Western Europe with trades.

Their city already looked like the 'perfect christmas city' you can see in movies, inspired by German culture. And they also mention Mulled Wine which is THE beverage to take in any chritmas market in Europe.

Chritmas markets are inspired and coming from Germany first, but I wanna point something more.

My main guess was, Nuremberg, the city where the ancestor of the pocket watch was created, the Nuremberg Egg. It's also a Fortified city and it has forests around it. It's also known for its Ginger cookies!

So Germany would be a great pic, but the more I think about it the more I can also see the link to another region: Alsace.

Alsace is a region from France right now BUT it's a mixt of german and french culture (I will not make a history lesson but it is a place that always switched between France and Germany basically, now it's French).

All the food mentionned before are also made in the Alsace region!

It's situated in the Vosges, a chain of mountains known to have a lot of forets of pines and which is known to have villages like this:

Which were also the main inspirations for movies like Howl's moving castle for example. You can see the similarities between the artchitectures

The first ever Chritmas Market was in Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace, when it was German and it spread accross Europe after.

I will now look at something I usually don't do because I exclude Aus from canon but it's just a funny thing to point out.

This au shows a snow town inspired by ginger bread houses. I just find it funny because Aoi is shown as a baker, with bread (which are not baguette I think, it's way larger here) but with some croissant on her table (disclaimer: Croissant are not french at first, this form here is, but it's from Austria otherwise) And Kako clearly has something similar to a Wine bottle in his hands. This au is the only one featuring them, was given with their volumes and the vibes are really similar to their boundary.

I would say no matter what it's definitely closer to German culture but I wanted to point out this region which is known for it's Christmas season and its typical houses.

I will mostly say that it's an inspiration from this region of Europe, I don't know if a real country is the reference for it since we don't even know where tbhk takes place, but it's always funny to look at those things :DD

Little bonus:

In a more messy note, the clothes. I put them at the end because besides their hats, I had no idea how to describe it, since it seems pretty typical of what people could wear in winter.

I did the research in the other way, to look for German and Alsacian clothing to see if it match and it kinda does but I don't think it's speficific to this region. The girls wear classic white Charlotte and big clothes with layers for Winter.

The clock keepers clothes are different, it looks like a mixt of Japanese and western European clothing (especially from england).

Their main outfits for Akane and Kako really just look like a typical waistcoast/costume you can find in the XIXth century in Europe and Mirai's seems more inspired by a mixt of a Kimono with several layers(she also has sandals and frills) and a coat? The little knots Kako and Akane have on their coats look like something inspired from Mizuhiki knots too (I actually saw a costume with those exact same knots in a museum but I didn't take a picture rip)

So I would say they probably changed slowly their attire when they arrived in Japan, we don't know since how many times they are here, but we know that what is happening in the deeper place of the boundary is linked to memories previous to their arrival. According to their origin I think we can say that it's pretty sure they arrived after the Meiji/during the Meiji Era in Japan (1868/1912), since it's a this time Japan mostly imported Western culture (for clothing here, the first contact was before this. And note: it was mostly rich people who dressed like this). And If we look at some others dates like the things they are eating, used to have or even their clothes, I would say it's more probably the Meiji Era and not in the XVs.

Another note is that their clocks have the numbers written in japanese on it (in the og version but it maye just be so it's readable for the japanese readers? idk if it's a choice or not).

I haven't searched much on their clothes but it was still something I wanted to note here ^^