Places to Visit

All places, by prefecture

Tōhoku

Iwate 岩手県

• Kappa-buchi and Jōkenji カッパ淵と常堅寺 Site Tōno, Iwate — A quiet pool on a stream behind a temple in Tōno, the place the town points to when it tells its kappa tales.
• Denshōen 伝承園 Museum Tōno, Iwate — A folk park built around an old L-shaped farmhouse, with a hall of a thousand silkworm deities and a room for the storyteller whose tales became Tōno Monogatari.
• Tōno Municipal Museum 遠野市立博物館 Museum Tōno, Iwate — The town museum of the valley whose tales were written down in 1910, with the oshira-sama, the kappa and the storytellers of Tōno Monogatari.
• Mitsuishi Shrine and the Oni's Handprints 三ツ石神社（鬼の手形） Shrine or temple Morioka, Iwate — Three granite boulders in a city grove where an oni pressed its hands into the rock as an oath, and gave the prefecture its name.
• Tōno Folktale Museum とおの物語の館 Museum Tōno, Iwate — A sake storehouse turned into a hall of tales, with the inn where the folklorist stayed and a stage where storytellers tell the tales in the dialect they were told in.
• Ryokufusō, the Inn of the Zashiki-warashi 緑風荘（座敷わらしの宿） Site Ninohe (Kindaichi Onsen), Iwate — A hot-spring inn at the far end of a small spa village, where a house spirit called Kamemaro is said to have lived in the inner room for six hundred years.

Akita 秋田県

• Namahage Museum and Shinzan Folklore Museum なまはげ館・男鹿真山伝承館 Museum Oga, Akita — The masks of every district of the Oga peninsula in one hall, and next door a farmhouse where the New Year's Eve visit is performed for those who cannot be there on the night.
• Namahage Sedo Festival なまはげ柴灯まつり Festival Oga, Akita — On a February night the namahage come down the snowy mountain with torches to the fire at Shinzan Shrine.

Kantō

Tochigi 栃木県

• Sesshōseki, the Killing Stone 殺生石 Site Nasu, Tochigi — A boulder in a bare volcanic hollow above the Nasu hot springs, the stone the nine-tailed fox became; it split in two in 2022.

Gunma 群馬県

• Morinji 茂林寺 Shrine or temple Tatebayashi, Gunma — The temple of the tea kettle that was a tanuki, with a row of tanuki statues up the approach and the kettle itself on show.
• Kashōzan Mirokuji 迦葉山弥勒寺 Shrine or temple Numata, Gunma — The third of Japan's great tengu mountains, with a tengu mask taller than a house and a custom of borrowing a mask and bringing two back.

Saitama 埼玉県

• Kijin Shrine 鬼鎮神社 Shrine or temple Ranzan, Saitama — The shrine that worships oni as its guardians, where iron clubs are offered and the Setsubun cry is "oni, come in".

Tokyo 東京都

• Oiwa Inari: Tamiya Shrine and Yōunji 於岩稲荷田宮神社・陽運寺 Shrine or temple Shinjuku (Yotsuya), Tokyo — Two small shrines facing each other across a lane in Yotsuya, on the ground where the Tamiya family lived and where the play put Oiwa's ghost.
• Ōji Fox Parade 王子 狐の行列 Festival Kita (Ōji), Tokyo — On New Year's Eve a procession in fox masks walks from the shrine of the changing tree to Ōji Inari, as the foxes did in Hiroshige's print.
• Takaosan Yakuōin 高尾山薬王院 Shrine or temple Hachiōji, Tokyo — The temple on Mount Takao whose guardian deity is served by tengu, with the great and small tengu in bronze before its hall.
• Kitarō Chaya 鬼太郎茶屋 Shop Chōfu, Tokyo — The yokai tea house of the town where Mizuki Shigeru lived for half a century, now on the shopping street by Chōfu station.

Kanagawa 神奈川県

• Daiyūzan Saijōji 大雄山最乗寺 Shrine or temple Minamiashigara, Kanagawa — A Zen temple in a cedar forest, guarded by the monk who became a tengu, with giant iron sandals left as offerings.

Chūbu

Fukui 福井県

• Kūinji and the Cave of Yao Bikuni 空印寺（八百比丘尼入定洞） Shrine or temple Obama, Fukui — The temple at the edge of Obama's castle town where the nun who ate mermaid flesh and lived eight hundred years entered her cave.

Nagano 長野県

• Kinasa Folk Museum and the Demon Woman Momiji 鬼無里ふるさと資料館と鬼女紅葉の里 Museum Nagano (Kinasa), Nagano — A mountain village named "no demons", with a museum of its festival floats and the grave of the woman the capital called a demon.

Shizuoka 静岡県

• Jōren Falls 浄蓮の滝 Site Izu, Shizuoka — A 25-metre waterfall in the Amagi hills of Izu, with wasabi beds along the stream below and a spider in the pool.

Kansai

Shiga 滋賀県

• Seta no Karahashi 瀬田の唐橋 Site Ōtsu, Shiga — The bridge at the outlet of Lake Biwa where a hero shot the centipede of Mount Mikami and a shark-man wept rubies.
• Mount Mikami 三上山 Site Yasu, Shiga — The conical mountain east of Lake Biwa that the great centipede wound itself around, climbed in forty minutes from the shrine at its foot.

Kyoto 京都府

• Seimei Shrine and Ichijō Modoribashi 晴明神社・一条戻橋 Shrine or temple Kyoto (Kamigyō), Kyoto — The shrine on the site of the court diviner's house and, a hundred metres south, the bridge where a warrior cut off an oni's arm.
• Nue Pond and Nue Daimyōjin 鵺池・鵺大明神 Site Kyoto (Kamigyō), Kyoto — A small stone-edged pond in a city park north-west of Nijō Castle, where the arrow that killed the nue was said to have been washed.
• Kurama-dera 鞍馬寺 Shrine or temple Kyoto (Sakyō), Kyoto — The mountain temple north of Kyoto where the king of the tengu taught a boy to fight, reached past a giant tengu head at the station.
• Japan Oni Exchange Museum 日本の鬼の交流博物館 Museum Fukuchiyama (Ōe), Kyoto — A museum of oni at the foot of Mount Ōe, where the oni king's fortress stood in the tale, with a roof tile five metres high outside.
• Kubizuka Daimyōjin 首塚大明神 Shrine or temple Kyoto (Nishikyō, Oinosaka pass), Kyoto — A small shrine on the old road at the pass west of Kyoto, where the oni king's head was buried because it could not be carried into the capital.
• Onitake Inari Shrine on Mount Ōe 鬼嶽稲荷神社 Shrine or temple Fukuchiyama (Ōe), Kyoto — A lone shrine at the eighth station of the oni's mountain, where the trail to Shuten-dōji's summit begins and the valley below fills with cloud at dawn.
• Ichijō Yōkai Street and Daishōgun Hachi Shrine 一条妖怪ストリート（大将軍商店街）と大将軍八神社 Street Kyoto (Kamigyō), Kyoto — Four hundred metres of shops on the road the night parade once took, with yokai figures at their doors and the shrine of the direction god at the west end.

Osaka 大阪府

• Nuezuka, the Nue Mound 鵺塚（都島） Site Osaka (Miyakojima), Osaka — A small stone mound between the houses of Miyakojima, where the nue's body was said to have washed ashore and been buried.
• Abe Seimei Shrine, Osaka 安倍晴明神社（大阪） Shrine or temple Osaka (Abeno), Osaka — The small shrine in Abeno that claims the diviner's birthplace, with his statue and the fox of his mother on the tablets.
• Kuzunoha Inari Shrine, Shinoda Forest 信太森葛葉稲荷神社 Shrine or temple Izumi, Osaka — The shrine in what is left of Shinoda forest, where the fox wife of the tales looked at herself in the well and went home.

Hyōgo 兵庫県

• Fukusaki: Yanagita Kunio's Birthplace and the Yokai Benches 福崎町（柳田國男・松岡家記念館と妖怪ベンチ） Site Fukusaki, Hyōgo — The town where the founder of Japanese folklore studies was born, which has filled its park and streets with the yokai he wrote about.

Nara 奈良県

• Gangōji 元興寺 Shrine or temple Nara, Nara — The old temple in the lanes of Naramachi whose bell tower was haunted by the demon Gagoze, caught by a boy of superhuman strength.

Chūgoku

Tottori 鳥取県

• Mizuki Shigeru Road 水木しげるロード Street Sakaiminato, Tottori — Eight hundred metres of bronze yokai from the station to the museum, in the port town where the artist grew up.
• Mizuki Shigeru Memorial Museum 水木しげる記念館 Museum Sakaiminato, Tottori — The museum at the end of the road: the artist's life, his original drawings and the yokai gallery, rebuilt and reopened in 2024.

Shimane 島根県

• Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum and Former Residence 小泉八雲記念館・小泉八雲旧居 Museum Matsue, Shimane — The samurai house where the writer of Kwaidan lived in Matsue, and the museum beside it with his desk and manuscripts.

Okayama 岡山県

• Kibitsu Shrine 吉備津神社 Shrine or temple Okayama, Okayama — The great shrine of the Kibi plain, where the head of the oni Ura is buried under the kettle whose rumble tells fortunes.
• Kinojō, the Oni's Castle 鬼ノ城 Site Sōja, Okayama — An ancient hilltop fortress of stone ramparts above the Kibi plain, the castle of the oni Ura in the tale.

Hiroshima 広島県

• Miyoshi Mononoke Museum 三次もののけミュージアム Museum Miyoshi, Hiroshima — A museum of yokai pictures and objects in the town where a sixteen-year-old was haunted for thirty nights in 1749.

Shikoku

Tokushima 徳島県

• The Konaki-jiji Statue at Fujikawa Valley 児啼爺の碑（藤川谷） Site Miyoshi (Yamashiro), Tokushima — A stone statue of the crying old man by a mountain road above the Ōboke gorge, in the valley where the 1938 record placed him.
• Yokai Yashiki at Ōboke 妖怪屋敷と石の博物館（道の駅大歩危） Museum Miyoshi (Yamashiro), Tokushima — A hall of some seventy yokai figures made by the people of the Ōboke valleys from their own tales, at the roadside station in the gorge.

Kagawa 香川県

• Yokai Art Museum, Shōdoshima 妖怪美術館（小豆島） Museum Tonoshō, Shōdoshima, Kagawa — Four old buildings in a maze of lanes on an island of the Inland Sea, holding nine hundred yokai made by artists of today.

Ehime 愛媛県

• Warei Shrine 和霊神社 Shrine or temple Uwajima, Ehime — The shrine of a murdered retainer on the edge of Uwajima, where the ushi-oni of the summer festival come to pay their respects.
• Uwajima Ushi-oni Festival うわじま牛鬼まつり Festival Uwajima, Ehime — Three days in July when twenty-odd ushi-oni from the districts of Uwajima parade through the streets and the portable shrine runs into the river.

Kyūshū

Fukuoka 福岡県

• Tanushimaru Station, the Kappa Station 田主丸駅（河童駅舎） Site Kurume (Tanushimaru), Fukuoka — A country station built in the shape of a kappa's head, in a town on the Chikugo river that has made the river child its own.
• Kurume Suitengū 久留米水天宮（全国総本宮） Shrine or temple Kurume, Fukuoka — The head shrine of the water gods of Japan, on the bank of the Chikugo river, where the kappa of the river are said to have taken service.

Kumamoto 熊本県

• The Kappa Landing Stone at Yatsushiro 河童渡来之碑（徳渕の津） Site Yatsushiro, Kumamoto — Two stones by a bridge at the old river port where, the tale says, nine thousand kappa came ashore from China under their chief Kyūsenbō.

Hours, admission and closing days change, and this site does not list them. The link goes to the place's own page, with the date we last checked it.