Rika lives with her mother and grandmother in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It's a big house in a japanese traditional architecture style (with traditional interior design) with a garden and a stone or concrete fence surrounding the building. The building is traditionally a one story house.
ENTRANCE
There's a house and around the house is an already mentioned 'fence' with giant wooden doors that lead to the entrance of the actual house. There's a wooden sign
on the giant doors that says 'Makino' in kanji, which is Rika's japanese family name (pic #2). A concrete path leads through the garden from the
main entrance to the entrance to the main building (pic #4).
GARDEN
This isn't actually a garden, it's just a big place covered in grass with some trees and (probably not) randomly placed rocks. If I observed it correctly, there's a
small pond on the right side of the garden (looking from the entrance), which is in front of Rika's room (there's a small map of Rika's house made by me at the end
of this page). The pond is surrounded by rocks and has a small bridge crossing it. There's also a little house-like sculpture I don't know what it is (pic #4).
The path made of some kind of sticks leads from the bridge near to Rika's room (pic #3).
ENTRANCE AREA
The entrance area aka "genkan" is the first place in a house or an appartment. It's where you take off your shoes and it usually has a small stair that leads to the
other rooms of the house. This area is pretty big in Rika's house and it has a red closet, some plants and a picture on the wall. On the first pic you can see the
entrance with the big doors. If you turn right after leaving the entrance area, you get to the living room.*
LIVING ROOM
Not sure if this is the living room but it's a room where we see Rika's grandma a lot and it has a table for socialising so let's call it the living room. When Rumiko
(Rika's mother) bought Rika a dress and wanted her to try it on, she did it in this room (which also has a mirror). Rika's grandma seems to be enjoying her tea in this
room often and since these traditional japanese houses have a lot of similar/same rooms, it's hard to define them. However, this is not the room where we always see
Seiko using a computer. (updated later: or is it?)
updated: I've just read on Wikipedia that japanese living rooms often have a so called tokonoma, which is a 'recessed space, the focus of the room; it displays
japanese art (usually calligraphy or a painting)'. This is what you can see on the second picture in the left corner (with a scroll on the wall), which means
this IS a living room!
SEIKO'S ROOM
So this is the room Seiko (Rika's grandma) is shown using a computer in the series and the fifth movie. It just gave me the feeling that it's kind of her room, since
she's usually there alone and Rika's never shown there using the computer (it could also be some kind of a computer room). There's also a bookshelf right to the
computer and a shiny blue table in the middle of the room. The computer is a bit different in the fifth movie. If you turn right on the corner you get to Rika's room.*
RIKA'S ROOM
I think that Rika's room is the last (important) room on the right side of the whole house. The room is very similar to any other room in the house. It has a pinkish
closet on the left, a table in the middle of the room (a futon-bed instead of it in the night) and some shelves, plants, a painting etc. on the right side of the
room (looking from the entrance). In episodes 6 and 11 there are also some posters on the wall above the closet but we can't see what's on them (one of them looks
like a schedule (pic #2)). There's also a clothes stand by the door. Rika is shown in her room a lot;
she's usually just sitting at the table (thinking of card strategies for example). By opening the sliding door (the whole house has them) she has a direct view at
the little pond in the garden.
KITCHEN
So all the other rooms I wrote about here have a direct view on the garden (from different angles). The kitchen on the other side must be one of the rooms that are more
on the inside of the house. It could be in the back of the house, where there are no sliding doors and no direct exit on the garden. It's a normal kitchen with
everything that belongs into one plus a non traditional table with chairs. In episode 44 where the three main Tamers and their parents are having lunch together is
another room. Oh, just as an interesting fact, there's lettuce and apples in the boxes on the fridge (second picture). =)
DINING ROOM
This is where the three Tamers had lunch together with their parents and Digimon in episode 44. However, if I researched it right, this is not the same room as the
one they're having a party in for Rika's birthday in movie 6. I observed the area around the whole house and came to the conclusion that this dining room (or whatever
you want to call it) is a room on the left side of the building. There's a house with a pink roof on the left side of Rika's house and you can see that house behind the Tamers'
parents at that lunch (look at the pics belove and check the map to see what I'm actually talking about). The dining room itself is nothing special, it has a giant
table with no chairs and an extra space for Renamon, who appearently likes to eat alone! There's the same scroll on the wall as in the living room but the view
isn't, so this shouldn't be the same room.
OTHER ROOMS
.. Rumiko's room .. Before going to the Digiworld Rika is shown dressed in one of those girly dresses visiting Rumiko in 'her room'. Rumiko is
there, drinking wine and just chilling, I guess. The room seems to be nicely decorated and a bit less traditional japanese - it has this garden furniture.
.. Rika's birthday party .. The room where they had the birthday party for Rika (movie 6) must be somewhere around Seiko's room or at least on the right side of the house. When Rika leaves the party, Takato follows her but he only makes a short way to find her at her room (I think it's just around the corner), which means they coulnd't be in the previously mentioned dining room, or else it would take him longer to get to her. The room seems to be leading to the kitchen, which is also more on the right side of the house. It's hard to place any room correctly, since the panels that devide rooms are used as walls but are actually 'doors' that are easily opened to make a room bigger or smaller. So this room could - for example - be Seiko's room with opened panels to make it bigger.
.. Rika on the phone .. In episode 21 when Takato calls Rika and Henry for advice about Juri and Leomon, Rika is shown in a non traditional room (comparing to the rest of the rooms); there's a 'normal' window with blue curtains and a hard wall. It's probably one of those rooms in the middle of the house like the kitchen - or maybe it is the kitchen.
SURROUNDING
Rika's house is in Shinjuku; it's in the part of the city where people have their appartments and houses. There's the centre with high buildings and
then there's this zone where people are living and go to work/have fun to the centre. Rika's neighbours are mostly small houses with one or two floors and
a lot of them have the stone fence around them. These houses aren't the japanese traditional types like Rika's, they're 'normal'. You can see the high Shinjuku
buildings from Rika's neighbourhood; I didn't however find a screenshot where you could see the famous government building. From the screenshots I made I'd say that
first there's the centre with really high buildings (government building for example), then there's appartment buildings (like Henry's) and then there are houses
(like Rika and Takato's). Look at picture 3 and decide, if you agree with me!
This is what I've figured out by watching all the episodes that had Rika's house in them (plus the movies). It doesn't mean I got it right but I did try to find
evidence for everything I wrote here. If you have any comments, you can always send me an email!
Rika's house is so big and the traditional types are really unpredictable so there must be a few rooms that we didn't even see in the show - I could only make a really
approximate plan. Plus it's an anime (not a RL series) and there are some details that are different in different episodes, which makes it even harder to know for
sure which room is where and if it is two rooms we see or is it only one.
I'll show you why I think Rika's house looks like this. Let's start with the garden (the green coloured things in the garden are trees xD).
GARDEN - in episode 12 Rika comes home and she looks for Renamon around the house. This is when we see all parts of the garden and the surrounding behind
the fence.
We see her enter the garden walking to the house. Before entering the house she turns to her left (which is right on my map) and we see the right part of the
garden.
DINING ROOM - in episode 44 Tamers' parents sit in the dining room and we can see the garden behind them. There's the same house with the pinkish roof as in previous pictures, which means the dining room has to have a direct access to the garden - the left part of the garden.
LIVING ROOM - as seen on this picture, it's possible to turn right and continue the hallway after the living room. It could be the first turn to the hall with Seiko's room or the hall to Rika's room. I'm not sure, that's why I made a turn on the map (dark green).
SEIKO'S ROOM - these are the screenshots from the fifth Digimon movie (Battle of Adventurers). Rika is on the way to her room when she stops at her grandma's to check sth on the computer with her. Since there's the computer, I assume this room is Seiko's. If you look at the pictures, you'll see the position of the bridge. The only possible position of the room must be where I've drawn it.
RIKA'S ROOM - as you can see from the pictures above, Rika turns right to another hallway - there's where her room is. It's in front of the pond, perpendicularly to the bridge. We know that it's at the end of the building because of picture #2. You can see that Renamon is standing at the fence plus there is this wooden path from the pond to the house (where Rika is sitting). On the first picture you can see that this path doesn't go straightly to her room, it goes to the room next to hers. Her room is the last room in the right part of the house.
KITCHEN - look at the pictures where I wrote about the kitchen. There are no sliding doors, just hard walls and a 'normal' window. Since there's a window, I believe the room has to have a view outside (it's not somewhere in the middle of the house where there are no windows). The front part of the house has sliding doors everywhere, that's why I'd say the windows have to be in the back, facing the stone fence.
I hope you enjoyed this! It was interesting making it but also very exhausting. It took me a few days to find the info and then extra few days just to write about it! x.x The most annoying thing about it was when I thought I was finally going to finish it and then I realised sth didn't match (like the Seiko's room : living room thing), which took me a lot of extra time. I had fun at it though ... If you have any questions or comments, let me know! :D
