Shibamata Taishakuten

From Keisei Shibamata Station, a shopping approach lined with kusa-dango dumpling shops and salted rice crackers ends at the Nitenmon Gate. This is Shibamata Taishakuten, officially Daikyo-ji of the Nichiren sect, made famous nationwide as the temple of Kuruma Torajiro in the film series Otoko wa Tsurai yo, and still full of old Tokyo atmosphere.

The temple was founded in 1629. According to tradition, the ninth chief priest Nikkyo, regarded as the temple's reviver, rediscovered the lost wooden image of Taishakuten on a Koshin day in 1779, so Koshin days, which come round every 60 days, became its festival days. In 1783 he carried the image through Edo to people suffering from the Great Tenmei Famine, and devotion spread, forming the temple town.

The Nitenmon Gate, built in 1896, houses the heavenly kings Zochoten and Komokuten. The Taishaku Hall beyond was completed in 1915 (inner sanctuary) and 1929 (worship hall). On the inner sanctuary are ten relief carvings of Lotus Sutra stories, each carved by a different sculptor between 1922 and 1934 and protected behind glass as the "Carving Gallery". Also notable is the pond garden Suikeien, designed in 1965 by Nagai Rakuzan, a Tokyo Metropolitan Place of Scenic Beauty, viewed from covered corridors.

Allow 1.5 to 2 hours with the approach. The temple is about 5 minutes on foot from Shibamata Station on the Keisei Kanamachi Line.