Yasukuni Shrine
Kamikaze pilots swore they would "meet again at Yasukuni" — 2,466,532 names are enshrined here, fourteen of them convicted of Class A war crimes at the Tokyo Trial.
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Few sites expose a nation's contested memory so plainly. Emperor Hirohito visited eight times after the war, then stopped — his displeasure over the enshrinement of top convicted war criminals prompted a boycott his successors Akihito and Naruhito have maintained entirely. The last sitting prime minister to visit was Shinzo Abe in 2013. That history of calculated absence is itself part of what you are reading when you walk the grounds.
What to look for
- The Chinreisha building, purpose-built to inter the souls of all people who died in World War II regardless of nationality
- The honden (main hall), which commemorates Koreans and Taiwanese who served Japan — a detail the shrine itself acknowledges
- The name Yasukuni, meaning 'Pacifying the Nation,' drawn from a classical Chinese text, the Zuo Zhuan, and chosen personally by Emperor Meiji
Located in Chiyoda, central Tokyo; the shrine remains an active political flashpoint, so the atmosphere on significant dates differs sharply from an ordinary visit.
Yasukuni Shrine is one of 35 sights worth the detour in Tokyo, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Tokyo pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Tokyo
- Mode Gakuen Cocoon TowerA 50-story school curved like a cocoon — white aluminum and dark-blue glass, criss-crossed by diagonal white lines — that beat 150 rival proposals and won Skyscraper of the Year.
- Tokyo SkytreeAt 634 metres, the height isn't random — 6-3-4 spells "Musashi," the ancient name for this exact corner of Tokyo.
- Tokyo TowerA third of its steel came from US tanks scrapped after the Korean War — Japan's postwar recovery, painted orange and bolted into the sky.
- National Diet LibraryBorn in 1948 as a "citadel of popular sovereignty," Japan's national library holds 12 million volumes — and anyone can walk in.
- Akihabara (Electric Town)The black market that outgrew itself and became Japan's otaku capital.
- Tokyo National MuseumOne in ten of every artwork Japan has ever officially designated a National Treasure lives here.