Yokai Night Parade 百鬼夜行

於岩稲荷田宮神社・陽運寺 · Shrine or temple · Shinjuku (Yotsuya), Tokyo

Oiwa Inari: Tamiya Shrine and Yōunji

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.

Quick Facts

Type
Shrine or temple
Prefecture
Tokyo · Shinjuku (Yotsuya)
Nearest station
Yotsuya-sanchōme Station (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line)
From the station
About five minutes on foot
English signage
some
Opening hours and admission
See the official site (external link) · information checked on 2026-11-03

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.

The torii of Oiwa Inari Tamiya Shrine in Yotsuya
Photo: Higa4, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (external link)

What is there

In a back lane of Samon-chō, Yotsuya, a small Shinto shrine and a Nichiren temple face each other across the road, and both are called Oiwa Inari. Tamiya Shrine stands on the site of the Tamiya family’s house and its household Inari; the original shrine burned in 1879 and was moved to Shinkawa in the merchant district, where it still stands, and the Yotsuya shrine was rebuilt on the old ground in 1952. Across the lane, the temple Yōunji keeps a well linked with Oiwa and a hall where actors and visitors pray before a performance. Kabuki companies come to both before they stage the play.

Why here

The woman the shrine remembers was a wife of the Tamiya family in the early seventeenth century whose devotion to Inari was said to have restored the household; the ghost with the ruined face belongs to the 1825 play, which borrowed her name and her street. The shrine’s own account keeps her as a faithful wife and her husband as a good man. The two versions have lived side by side on this lane for two centuries, which is why actors still come to ask her pardon.

Yokai you will meet

  • Oiwa お岩 — The Tamiya family's shrine and the temple well; actors pray here before staging the 1825 play.

Getting there

Yotsuya-sanchōme Station (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line). About five minutes on foot.

Sources and further reading

  1. Reliable secondary Oiwa Inari Yōunji (external link) Yōunji temple (Yotsuya) The temple's account of Oiwa, the well and the visits of actors before performances.
  2. Database Oiwa Inari Tamiya Shrine (於岩稲荷田宮神社) (external link) Wikipedia (Japanese) The two shrines of the name: the 1879 move to Shinkawa and the 1952 rebuilding at Yotsuya.

Other places in Tokyo

  • 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.