Tokyo: Did you mean...?

Kamakura is a coastal town located on Sagami Bay on Honshu Island, Japan, which was the capital of the Kamakura Shogunate from 1192 to 1333 CE. Provided with excellent natural defensive features, it was fortified and made the base of...

Hachiman is the ancient Shinto god or kami of war, divination, and culture. He is famously credited with sending the kamikaze or 'divine wind' which twice dispersed the invading fleets of Mongol ruler Kublai Khan...

Kiyomizu-dera, otherwise known as the 'Temple of the Pure Water Spring', is a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. The site is famous for its impressive viewing platform, three-storey Koyasu pagoda and the medicinal pure waters of the...

The Shimabara Rebellion was a peasant uprising that occurred from 17 December 1637 to 15 April 1638 in Japan's southern island of Kyushu. Economic desperation, famine, and religious persecution led the peasants of the Shimabara...

Namazu (aka Onamazu) is the giant catfish of Japanese mythology held responsible for creating earthquakes. The creature was thought to live under the earth, and when it swam through the underwater seas and rivers there, it caused earthquakes...

Kagutsuchi (aka Hi-no-Kagutsuchi) is the Shinto god or kami of fire and is also known as Homusubi. The son of Izanami and Izanagi, the fire god is the father of eight warrior gods and eight mountain gods, amongst others. Such a destructive...

Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (1646-1709) governed Japan as the fifth shogun of the Edo period (1603-1876). He has often been ridiculed as the 'dog shogun' because of the laws he enacted to protect the lives of animals. Economically...

War tales (gunki monogatari) is a genre of historical writing that developed in Japan from the Heian Period (794-1185) to the Muromachi Period (1333-1573). They form an important element in the development of the Japanese literary...

Kanadehon Chushingura (A Treasury of Loyalty of Loyal Retainers or The Story of the Forty-Seven Samurai) is the most popular play in the history of Japanese theatre, first performed in 1748. It is a work of fiction, but the details...

Nijo Castle, located in Kyoto, Japan, was first built in 1603 CE by Tokugawa Ieyasu (r. 1603-1605 CE), founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868 CE). The castle complex is surrounded by a double moat and made up of three distinct...