That Pool

The Usual Pool (例のプール, rei no puuru)(also known simply as That Pool (あのプール, ano puuru) ) is an indoor swimming pool that appears frequently in Japanese gravure photo shoots and adult films. It's frequent appearance has resulted in it becoming part of the country's internet subculture with many people recreating the location in sandbox games like Minecraft, creating models of the location and even featuring it as a gag location in manga and anime.

The pool is located within a high rise in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo built some time before the country's economic recession in the early 2000's. Connected to a luxury apartment studio known as "The Hanazono Room" that once belonged to Japanese actor, after Ishizaka moved residencies the location became owned by Japanese real-estate company P-Studio who began renting the location out to various film production companies. Due to its close proximity to Japanese model agencies and production companies, the indoor pool became frequently used as a backdrop for swimsuit photo shoots and adult films, especially low-budget productions with limitations on location shoots.

Sometime in the mid-2000s, a few of users on BBSPINK (2-chan's board community for adult content), began to take notice of the indoor pool reappearing in different idol magazine spreads and adult films. Several BBSPINK threads for talking about this pool were posted in 2005 and 2007 and during this period, BBSPINK users were able to identify the pool’s location as the Hanazono Room and began referring to it as "That Pool".

Throughout the first half of 2009, discussions of "That Pool" saw a visible increase in online presence amongst Japanese internet bloggers and Twitter users and by early 2010, the now-infamous pool had been used as the backdrop for erotic parodies of Miku Miku Dance videos on Nico Nico Douga, as well as illustrations on pixiv and Nico Nico Seiaga. In addition, the pool became a popular photo location amongst amateur cosplay photographers as well as professional photographers for its recognizability.

Trivia

 * The Sports Club Kobold's sunbathing pool is modelled after That Pool.
 * A book was published in 2013 listing all of the location's film/photo appearances to date. It features interviews with adult movie stars who used the location, factoids, bikini pics and a list of movies featuring the pool.
 * "That Pool" has been used in Miku Miku Dance videos since after its stage model data was uploaded to Nico Nico Douga on December 20th, 2009.
 * In, the Japanese government blows up That Pool as part of its effort to combat lewdness in society.
 * In an article published on September 6th, 2012, Taiwanese news site NOWnews introduced "That Pool" as one of the rooms recognized by more than 90% Taiwanese men.
 * In summer of 2013, Nico Nico Douga’s official gift-exchanging event for premium users listed the right to join in a shooting event at "That Pool" in one of the present items. This event was live-broadcasted by Nico Nico Live on August 29th and reported in an online article by a Japanese gossip magazine on September 5th.