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Several times during the anime, Yūko Aioi ends her short haikus with 'Mogami River'.

I've read on the Wikipedia page for Mogami River that Matsuo Bashō used it in at least one of his poems, but I can't much written about it, so it seems to me to be not a well-known feature of his poems.

Is this the correct reason for the inclusion of the line, or is there an alternative reason?

enter image description here

(I couldn't find an image with subtitles, so hopefully this is a correct example)

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    Matsuo Basho wrote several hokku as he traveled along the Mogami River (Mogamigawa) in the 15th century. It's not a feature of his poems, but rather the subject of them (it's a lovely boat ride).
    – кяαzєя
    Commented Nov 17, 2013 at 1:05
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    It's a lot easier to do 5-7-5 and reference nature when you have a final line of length 5 (mo+ga+mi+ga+wa) that you stick in to every poem because Yuuko can't think of a whole haiku (was my takeaway).
    – Mark S.
    Commented Jan 5, 2014 at 0:29
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    @MarkS. I guess you could post that as an answer, since it looks legit for a comedy series.
    – Hakase
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 17:27

1 Answer 1

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According to this academic site, while it is not a kigo (season word), the mogami river is well known in Japanese haiku.

I imagine Yuuko has trouble thinking of an entire 5-7-5 poem, and so she just reuses this famous line for that reason.

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