Almost weekly Momo Nomura makes time to visit Shinto shrines. She performs the prescribed rituals — cleansing her hands, ringing a bell, bowing and clapping. But her main purpose is getting a ...

Situated on Otowa Mountain in eastern Kyoto, Kiyomizu-dera Temple wows travelers with its stunning natural scenery, which visitors say is best viewed from the verandah off the temple's main building.

For centuries, residents in central Japan have chronicled a mysterious natural phenomenon in winter. They see its ...

One of Japan's most colourful festivals, the Sanja Matsuri is a rowdy mix of religious ritual and wild street party Sensoji, ...

From Aoshima and its associations with the legend of Hoori or Yamasachihiko, great-grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu, it is a 40-minute drive down the Nichinan coast to Udozaki, where the saga ...

SANBAGAWA, Gunma Prefecture--Benmou Suzuki’s dilapidated 420-year-old temple, located deep in the forest near a tiny Japanese mountain village, hardly looks like prized real estate. Yet the monk ...

When asked about the importance of spirituality in Japan, many Japanese people might struggle to explain exactly what it means. Over centuries, the country's spirituality has been like a sponge ...

Many have spent years studying and teaching Japanese anime, exploring how its narratives intertwine with cultural, ...

This time we introduce "Aso Jinja: A Shinto Shrine Rises from the Rubble," which presents the recovery project of Aso Jinja, a Shinto shrine destroyed in the Kumamoto earthquake in 2016.

There are 538 very uneven, steep and slippery stone steps to climb before I reach the Kamikura-Jinja Shrine. But once I get to the top, I will be at one of the oldest and most sacred places in the ...

For everyone who's still figuring it out.