Tokyo: Old Town and the Sacred East

The temple complex you see today is not old. It was completely destroyed on the night of March ninth to tenth, nineteen forty-five, when American B-29s dropped incendiary bombs on the wooden neighborhoods of shitamachi in one of the most devastating conventional bombing raids in history. The current main hall and five-storey pagoda were rebuilt beginning in nineteen fifty-eight. The pagoda stands forty-eight metres tall — it was rebuilt in nineteen seventy-three. What strikes people is not that the buildings are modern reconstructions, but that they do not feel like it. The scale, the dark wood, the layers of curving roof — the aesthetic continuity with the original is so complete that the dates feel almost irrelevant.

Before you enter the main hall, stop at the large bronze incense burner — the koro — in the forecourt. The smoke rising from it is believed to carry healing properties: wherever the smoke touches, it heals. Watch what people do. They cup their hands and fan the smoke toward their faces, toward their knees, toward their lower backs, toward their eyes. The whole forecourt has this ritual, unhurried quality — people taking care of their bodies and their luck before stepping forward to pray.

At the stalls along the Nakamise approach, keep an eye out for ningyo-yaki: small cakes stamped into the shapes of the five-storey pagoda and the lantern, filled with sweet red bean paste. They have been sold on this street for well over a century. Also look for kaminari-okoshi — thunder rice crackers, a three-hundred-year-old Asakusa specialty made from puffed rice, sugar, and peanuts. The name means thunder-rise, the same thunder referenced in the gate you came through. Both make excellent things to eat while walking.

The temple complex you see today is not old. It was completely destroyed on the night of March ninth to tenth, nineteen forty-five, when American B-29s dropped incendiary bombs on the wooden neighborhoods of shitamachi in one of the most devastating conventional bombing raids in history. The current main hall and five-storey pagoda were rebuilt beginning in nineteen fifty-eight. The pagoda stands forty-eight metres tall — it was rebuilt in nineteen seventy-three. What strikes people is not that the buildings are modern reconstructions, but that they do not feel like it. The scale, the dark wood, the layers of curving roof — the aesthetic continuity with the original is so complete that the dates feel almost irrelevant.

Before you enter the main hall, stop at the large bronze incense burner — the koro — in the forecourt. The smoke rising from it is believed to carry healing properties: wherever the smoke touches, it heals. Watch what people do. They cup their hands and fan the smoke toward their faces, toward their knees, toward their lower backs, toward their eyes. The whole forecourt has this ritual, unhurried quality — people taking care of their bodies and their luck before stepping forward to pray.

At the stalls along the Nakamise approach, keep an eye out for ningyo-yaki: small cakes stamped into the shapes of the five-storey pagoda and the lantern, filled with sweet red bean paste. They have been sold on this street for well over a century. Also look for kaminari-okoshi — thunder rice crackers, a three-hundred-year-old Asakusa specialty made from puffed rice, sugar, and peanuts. The name means thunder-rise, the same thunder referenced in the gate you came through. Both make excellent things to eat while walking.

The goods sold here are a mixture of genuine craft and tourist souvenir — sometimes the same object. The folding fans, the lacquerware, the tenugui (hand towels) printed with traditional patterns, the kanzashi (decorative hair ornaments) — these are often genuinely made by craftspeople in the Asakusa area, which has been a center of traditional craft production for centuries. The neighborhood around Nakamise still houses workshops making taiko drums, theatrical props for kabuki and Noh performances, festival mikoshi (portable shrines), and specialized equipment for Tokyo's hundreds of annual matsuri.

The things worth pausing for: the craft shops toward the Hozomon end tend to have more serious goods than the souvenir shops near the outer gate. A good tenugui — a flat-woven cotton cloth printed with an indigo-dyed pattern — is a genuinely useful object and an excellent piece of Japanese design. They are used as hand towels, head wraps, wrapping cloths, wall hangings. One of the better things you can take home from Tokyo.

Look up at the eaves of the buildings as you walk. The roofline and the proportions of the buildings are deliberately modeled on the machiya townhouses of Edo-period Asakusa — the low merchant city that existed here before the bombings. The scale is correct: the narrow frontages, the shallow depth, the way the street narrows toward the inner gate. This is a reconstruction of an aesthetic that was itself shaped over centuries, and the result is that it feels right in a way that many reconstructed historic streets do not. It is theatrical but not dishonest. The scale makes you feel like a human being rather than a visitor.

The goods sold here are a mixture of genuine craft and tourist souvenir — sometimes the same object. The folding fans, the lacquerware, the tenugui (hand towels) printed with traditional patterns, the kanzashi (decorative hair ornaments) — these are often genuinely made by craftspeople in the Asakusa area, which has been a center of traditional craft production for centuries. The neighborhood around Nakamise still houses workshops making taiko drums, theatrical props for kabuki and Noh performances, festival mikoshi (portable shrines), and specialized equipment for Tokyo's hundreds of annual matsuri.

The things worth pausing for: the craft shops toward the Hozomon end tend to have more serious goods than the souvenir shops near the outer gate. A good tenugui — a flat-woven cotton cloth printed with an indigo-dyed pattern — is a genuinely useful object and an excellent piece of Japanese design. They are used as hand towels, head wraps, wrapping cloths, wall hangings. One of the better things you can take home from Tokyo.

Look up at the eaves of the buildings as you walk. The roofline and the proportions of the buildings are deliberately modeled on the machiya townhouses of Edo-period Asakusa — the low merchant city that existed here before the bombings. The scale is correct: the narrow frontages, the shallow depth, the way the street narrows toward the inner gate. This is a reconstruction of an aesthetic that was itself shaped over centuries, and the result is that it feels right in a way that many reconstructed historic streets do not. It is theatrical but not dishonest. The scale makes you feel like a human being rather than a visitor.

The two guardian statues flanking the gate are among the most important features. On the right as you face the gate: Fujin, the god of wind, shown carrying a sack of wind on his shoulders. On the left: Raijin, the god of thunder, shown surrounded by drums. Together they give the gate its name — Thunder-and-Wind Gate, shortened to Thunder Gate in common usage. Both statues are impressive pieces of devotional sculpture: muscular, dynamic, slightly terrifying. They serve the function all temple guardians serve — to frighten away evil and protect the sacred space behind them.

One detail most visitors miss: stand directly beneath the lantern and look up at its underside. The bottom of the lantern is carved with a detailed painted dragon — a gold dragon descending through clouds, coiling toward the earth. It is not visible from any angle except directly below. This kind of hidden detail — the reward for the person who looks up rather than straight ahead — is characteristic of Japanese religious architecture. There is always something more to see.

On busy days the approach through Kaminarimon can be so crowded that movement is slow and difficult. This is not a modern problem. Accounts from the Edo period describe exactly the same conditions — Senso-ji has always drawn enormous crowds, and the commerce and crowds and street food have always been part of what it is. The pilgrimage and the market are not separate things here. They have always been the same thing.

The two guardian statues flanking the gate are among the most important features. On the right as you face the gate: Fujin, the god of wind, shown carrying a sack of wind on his shoulders. On the left: Raijin, the god of thunder, shown surrounded by drums. Together they give the gate its name — Thunder-and-Wind Gate, shortened to Thunder Gate in common usage. Both statues are impressive pieces of devotional sculpture: muscular, dynamic, slightly terrifying. They serve the function all temple guardians serve — to frighten away evil and protect the sacred space behind them.

One detail most visitors miss: stand directly beneath the lantern and look up at its underside. The bottom of the lantern is carved with a detailed painted dragon — a gold dragon descending through clouds, coiling toward the earth. It is not visible from any angle except directly below. This kind of hidden detail — the reward for the person who looks up rather than straight ahead — is characteristic of Japanese religious architecture. There is always something more to see.

On busy days the approach through Kaminarimon can be so crowded that movement is slow and difficult. This is not a modern problem. Accounts from the Edo period describe exactly the same conditions — Senso-ji has always drawn enormous crowds, and the commerce and crowds and street food have always been part of what it is. The pilgrimage and the market are not separate things here. They have always been the same thing.

What is remarkable about this view is not just the juxtaposition of old and new, though that is striking enough — the forty-eight-metre pagoda and the six-hundred-and-thirty-four-metre tower, separated by a few hundred metres and about twelve hundred years of architectural history. What is remarkable is that there is almost nothing in between. The roofline of Asakusa between the pagoda and the tower is low, human-scaled, and largely uncluttered by mid-century construction. The view collapses time in a way that feels specific to Tokyo, and specifically to Asakusa.

Tokyo is a city of extraordinary visual contrasts, but most of those contrasts involve proximity without juxtaposition — the shrine tucked behind the office block, the traditional restaurant inside the glass tower. Here, in this view from the tourist information center, the juxtaposition is frontal and unavoidable. The most ancient religious structure remaining in Tokyo and the most modern technological structure in Japan occupy the same frame, with the old city between them. It is not sentimental and it is not kitsch. It is simply how the city grows.

The building you are standing beside — the Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center — is worth a look in itself. It was designed by Kengo Kuma, one of Japan's most significant living architects, and completed in two thousand and twelve, the same year as the Skytree. The stacked-house facade, with its layered overhanging rooflines, is a deliberate reference to the traditional nagaya (row house) architecture of old Asakusa. Kuma is known for designs that embed new structures in the visual language of the places they occupy. The building works. Go up to the upper floors for a free observation deck with good views in all directions.

What is remarkable about this view is not just the juxtaposition of old and new, though that is striking enough — the forty-eight-metre pagoda and the six-hundred-and-thirty-four-metre tower, separated by a few hundred metres and about twelve hundred years of architectural history. What is remarkable is that there is almost nothing in between. The roofline of Asakusa between the pagoda and the tower is low, human-scaled, and largely uncluttered by mid-century construction. The view collapses time in a way that feels specific to Tokyo, and specifically to Asakusa.

Tokyo is a city of extraordinary visual contrasts, but most of those contrasts involve proximity without juxtaposition — the shrine tucked behind the office block, the traditional restaurant inside the glass tower. Here, in this view from the tourist information center, the juxtaposition is frontal and unavoidable. The most ancient religious structure remaining in Tokyo and the most modern technological structure in Japan occupy the same frame, with the old city between them. It is not sentimental and it is not kitsch. It is simply how the city grows.

The building you are standing beside — the Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center — is worth a look in itself. It was designed by Kengo Kuma, one of Japan's most significant living architects, and completed in two thousand and twelve, the same year as the Skytree. The stacked-house facade, with its layered overhanging rooflines, is a deliberate reference to the traditional nagaya (row house) architecture of old Asakusa. Kuma is known for designs that embed new structures in the visual language of the places they occupy. The building works. Go up to the upper floors for a free observation deck with good views in all directions.

The Kanto Earthquake of September first, nineteen twenty-three, was one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern Japanese history. It killed approximately one hundred and five thousand people in the Tokyo and Yokohama region, destroyed two-thirds of Tokyo's buildings, and triggered firestorms that burned for days. Tens of thousands of survivors from the shitamachi neighborhoods east of the river gathered on the riverbank and in the open spaces of Honjo, trying to escape the fires. Then the firestorm, driven by earthquake-generated winds, turned toward them. The people who jumped into the water survived. Those who stayed died where they stood. Forty thousand people died in Honjo and Fukagawa on that day. The eastern bank of the Sumida was a mass grave.

Twenty-two years later, on the night of March ninth to tenth, nineteen forty-five, American B-29s dropped incendiary bombs on the same neighborhoods — the dense wooden shitamachi of eastern Tokyo. The Sumida River ran red. Between eighty thousand and a hundred thousand people died in a single night. The firebombing of Tokyo in March nineteen forty-five killed more people in a single raid than either the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima or the one dropped on Nagasaki.

Today the riverbank has been transformed into a pleasant riverside walk, planted with cherry trees that are spectacular in April. Water buses run from the pier below Azumabashi upstream to Asakusa and downstream to Odaiba. On summer evenings the Sumida fireworks festival fills the sky above the river with one of the great fireworks displays in Japan. The river has been cleaned since the nineteen sixties — you can see fish in it now. The history is not visible. It rarely is in Tokyo. But it is present, and walking along this bank, you are walking over the ghost of a city.

The Kanto Earthquake of September first, nineteen twenty-three, was one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern Japanese history. It killed approximately one hundred and five thousand people in the Tokyo and Yokohama region, destroyed two-thirds of Tokyo's buildings, and triggered firestorms that burned for days. Tens of thousands of survivors from the shitamachi neighborhoods east of the river gathered on the riverbank and in the open spaces of Honjo, trying to escape the fires. Then the firestorm, driven by earthquake-generated winds, turned toward them. The people who jumped into the water survived. Those who stayed died where they stood. Forty thousand people died in Honjo and Fukagawa on that day. The eastern bank of the Sumida was a mass grave.

Twenty-two years later, on the night of March ninth to tenth, nineteen forty-five, American B-29s dropped incendiary bombs on the same neighborhoods — the dense wooden shitamachi of eastern Tokyo. The Sumida River ran red. Between eighty thousand and a hundred thousand people died in a single night. The firebombing of Tokyo in March nineteen forty-five killed more people in a single raid than either the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima or the one dropped on Nagasaki.

Today the riverbank has been transformed into a pleasant riverside walk, planted with cherry trees that are spectacular in April. Water buses run from the pier below Azumabashi upstream to Asakusa and downstream to Odaiba. On summer evenings the Sumida fireworks festival fills the sky above the river with one of the great fireworks displays in Japan. The river has been cleaned since the nineteen sixties — you can see fish in it now. The history is not visible. It rarely is in Tokyo. But it is present, and walking along this bank, you are walking over the ghost of a city.

The candy sellers who gave the market its name sold a sweet made from sugar and sweet potatoes — a more affordable version of the American candy that was technically the luxury item. The name stuck even as the goods changed. By the nineteen fifties the black market had evolved into a legitimate, if chaotic, market selling fresh fish, meat, vegetables, dried goods, and imported products at prices lower than the department stores. It was where working-class Tokyo ate well.

Today Ameyoko sells everything: fresh tuna from the fish stalls at prices that compete with the famous Tsukiji market; imported cosmetics and health supplements; sportswear, trainers, and bags from stalls that sit at an angle to the luxury brands they are nodding toward; dried fruit and nuts; cheap luggage; fresh seafood in polystyrene boxes. The atmosphere is loud, crowded, and cheerful. It is one of the few places in central Tokyo where people actually negotiate prices, or try to.

The most important date in the Ameyoko calendar is the three days before New Year — December twenty-ninth to thirty-first. The entire market becomes one of the most crowded places in Japan as Tokyo prepares for the New Year holiday. Every fish stall, every food vendor, every produce stand is packed with people buying the traditional osechi foods for New Year feasting. The fish vendors shout prices. The crowds press in. It is spectacular and nearly impossible to move through, which makes it entirely worth it.

The candy sellers who gave the market its name sold a sweet made from sugar and sweet potatoes — a more affordable version of the American candy that was technically the luxury item. The name stuck even as the goods changed. By the nineteen fifties the black market had evolved into a legitimate, if chaotic, market selling fresh fish, meat, vegetables, dried goods, and imported products at prices lower than the department stores. It was where working-class Tokyo ate well.

Today Ameyoko sells everything: fresh tuna from the fish stalls at prices that compete with the famous Tsukiji market; imported cosmetics and health supplements; sportswear, trainers, and bags from stalls that sit at an angle to the luxury brands they are nodding toward; dried fruit and nuts; cheap luggage; fresh seafood in polystyrene boxes. The atmosphere is loud, crowded, and cheerful. It is one of the few places in central Tokyo where people actually negotiate prices, or try to.

The most important date in the Ameyoko calendar is the three days before New Year — December twenty-ninth to thirty-first. The entire market becomes one of the most crowded places in Japan as Tokyo prepares for the New Year holiday. Every fish stall, every food vendor, every produce stand is packed with people buying the traditional osechi foods for New Year feasting. The fish vendors shout prices. The crowds press in. It is spectacular and nearly impossible to move through, which makes it entirely worth it.

Also buried in Yanaka: Yokoyama Taikan, considered one of the greatest Japanese painters of the twentieth century, whose large-scale ink paintings helped define the Nihonga tradition that sought to preserve traditional Japanese aesthetics in the modern era.

Now, the cats. Yanaka Cemetery has cats. Not a few cats — dozens of cats, perhaps hundreds, semi-feral, fed by local residents, sleeping on warm grave stones in the afternoon sun, hunting in the undergrowth, watching visitors with the level gaze of animals that know they own the place. Nobody has a satisfying explanation for why they are here in such numbers. The cemetery is peaceful, there is food from well-meaning people, and cats have always gone where they wish. The cats of Yanaka are a fact of Tokyo life, covered in local media, loved by the neighborhood, and entirely unbothered by you.

In late March and early April, the main avenue of the cemetery becomes one of the most atmospheric spots in Tokyo for hanami — flower viewing. The avenue is lined with cherry trees, and the combination of blossoms, grave stones, old stone lanterns, and cats creates an experience of Japanese aesthetics that no designed space could replicate. Come back in April if you possibly can.

Also buried in Yanaka: Yokoyama Taikan, considered one of the greatest Japanese painters of the twentieth century, whose large-scale ink paintings helped define the Nihonga tradition that sought to preserve traditional Japanese aesthetics in the modern era.

Now, the cats. Yanaka Cemetery has cats. Not a few cats — dozens of cats, perhaps hundreds, semi-feral, fed by local residents, sleeping on warm grave stones in the afternoon sun, hunting in the undergrowth, watching visitors with the level gaze of animals that know they own the place. Nobody has a satisfying explanation for why they are here in such numbers. The cemetery is peaceful, there is food from well-meaning people, and cats have always gone where they wish. The cats of Yanaka are a fact of Tokyo life, covered in local media, loved by the neighborhood, and entirely unbothered by you.

In late March and early April, the main avenue of the cemetery becomes one of the most atmospheric spots in Tokyo for hanami — flower viewing. The avenue is lined with cherry trees, and the combination of blossoms, grave stones, old stone lanterns, and cats creates an experience of Japanese aesthetics that no designed space could replicate. Come back in April if you possibly can.

What this means, practically, is that Yanaka retains the physical fabric of old shitamachi: the narrow two-storey machiya townhouses with their wooden facades and small street-front shops, the tangled network of alleys too narrow for cars, the density of small temples and shrines (there are nearly seventy temples in the Yanaka area, more than in any other Tokyo neighborhood), and the social character of a neighborhood where people know their neighbors and local institutions have lasted for generations.

The shops along Yanaka Ginza reflect this: a tofu maker who has been making fresh tofu every morning since before you were born; a rice seller with sacks of different varieties from different prefectures; fabric stores; craft shops; a sweet shop where the same sweets have been made the same way since the Showa era. In recent years the neighborhood has also attracted younger residents and businesses — artisan coffee shops in converted machiya, boutique galleries, ceramic studios — and the tension between the traditional character and the fashionable is visible and not yet resolved. But the essential scale and texture of the street is intact.

There are, of course, cats. Yanaka's cats are as much a feature of the neighborhood as its temples. They appear in painted wooden signs, in ceramic tiles set into walls, in the shop logos. One end of the shopping street is marked by a traditional gate; the other descends in broad steps toward the low ground of the neighborhood below. Stand at the top of those steps at dusk and look down over the rooftops. In a city of thirty-seven million people, this view is extraordinary in its quietness.

What this means, practically, is that Yanaka retains the physical fabric of old shitamachi: the narrow two-storey machiya townhouses with their wooden facades and small street-front shops, the tangled network of alleys too narrow for cars, the density of small temples and shrines (there are nearly seventy temples in the Yanaka area, more than in any other Tokyo neighborhood), and the social character of a neighborhood where people know their neighbors and local institutions have lasted for generations.

The shops along Yanaka Ginza reflect this: a tofu maker who has been making fresh tofu every morning since before you were born; a rice seller with sacks of different varieties from different prefectures; fabric stores; craft shops; a sweet shop where the same sweets have been made the same way since the Showa era. In recent years the neighborhood has also attracted younger residents and businesses — artisan coffee shops in converted machiya, boutique galleries, ceramic studios — and the tension between the traditional character and the fashionable is visible and not yet resolved. But the essential scale and texture of the street is intact.

There are, of course, cats. Yanaka's cats are as much a feature of the neighborhood as its temples. They appear in painted wooden signs, in ceramic tiles set into walls, in the shop logos. One end of the shopping street is marked by a traditional gate; the other descends in broad steps toward the low ground of the neighborhood below. Stand at the top of those steps at dusk and look down over the rooftops. In a city of thirty-seven million people, this view is extraordinary in its quietness.

What makes Nezu visually unforgettable is the series of tunnels formed by closely-spaced vermilion torii gates climbing the wooded hillside paths. The gates are donated by worshippers and businesses as offerings — the tradition of donating a torii is ancient, and the density of gates at major shrines reflects centuries of accumulated offerings. At Nezu, the gates are arranged in long rows along the hillside, creating tunnels of red lacquered wood that alternate with glimpses of green forest and sky. Walking through them produces a particular quality of attention — you are inside a structure and outside it at the same time, in a corridor that is open on all sides.

The most famous example of this arrangement is the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine in Kyoto, where thousands of torii gates wind up a mountain in one of the most visited and photographed places in Japan. Nezu has fewer gates and far fewer visitors. On a weekday morning you may have the hillside paths almost to yourself, which is an extraordinary thing to say about a shrine in central Tokyo.

In late April and early May, the shrine becomes locally famous for its tsutsuji matsuri — the azalea festival. The entire hillside is planted with approximately three thousand azalea bushes, and when they bloom the whole landscape becomes an improbable mass of pink, red, purple, and white against the vermilion gates and dark wood of the shrine buildings. If your timing is right, this is one of the genuine seasonal spectacles of Tokyo, and almost entirely unknown to visitors who have not specifically sought it out.

What makes Nezu visually unforgettable is the series of tunnels formed by closely-spaced vermilion torii gates climbing the wooded hillside paths. The gates are donated by worshippers and businesses as offerings — the tradition of donating a torii is ancient, and the density of gates at major shrines reflects centuries of accumulated offerings. At Nezu, the gates are arranged in long rows along the hillside, creating tunnels of red lacquered wood that alternate with glimpses of green forest and sky. Walking through them produces a particular quality of attention — you are inside a structure and outside it at the same time, in a corridor that is open on all sides.

The most famous example of this arrangement is the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine in Kyoto, where thousands of torii gates wind up a mountain in one of the most visited and photographed places in Japan. Nezu has fewer gates and far fewer visitors. On a weekday morning you may have the hillside paths almost to yourself, which is an extraordinary thing to say about a shrine in central Tokyo.

In late April and early May, the shrine becomes locally famous for its tsutsuji matsuri — the azalea festival. The entire hillside is planted with approximately three thousand azalea bushes, and when they bloom the whole landscape becomes an improbable mass of pink, red, purple, and white against the vermilion gates and dark wood of the shrine buildings. If your timing is right, this is one of the genuine seasonal spectacles of Tokyo, and almost entirely unknown to visitors who have not specifically sought it out.

And then he turned against what he had made. The Meiji government moved with extraordinary speed to transform Japan along Western lines — abolishing the samurai class, banning the carrying of swords, creating a conscript army of commoners to replace the samurai military tradition. To Saigo, this was not modernization but the abandonment of the values that had made Japan worth defending. He resigned from government in eighteen seventy-three over a political dispute. In eighteen seventy-seven he led the Satsuma Rebellion — the last large-scale armed uprising of the samurai class against the modernizing state, with forty thousand men under his command.

He lost. The Meiji government's conscript army, trained and equipped on Western lines, was more effective than the samurai force it faced. The final battle was at Shiroyama, in Saigo's home Kagoshima, on September twenty-fourth, eighteen seventy-seven. Saigo was wounded in the fighting and died that morning — whether killed by enemy fire or by ritual suicide in the traditional manner, the accounts differ. He was fifty years old.

He was pardoned posthumously in eighteen ninety-one. This statue was unveiled in Ueno Park in eighteen ninety-eight, twenty-one years after his death, funded by public subscription. He is shown with his dog because he famously loved dogs and spent his later years hunting with them. He is one of the most beloved figures in all of Japanese history — not despite his rebellion but because of it. The man who understood both worlds and chose the older one. The film The Last Samurai, made in two thousand and three with Tom Cruise, was loosely based on his story, transposing an American adviser into the central role that Saigo's character occupied in fact.

Ueno Park itself, surrounding you, is one of the great green spaces of Tokyo — a former shogunal hunting reserve converted into Tokyo's first public park in eighteen seventy-three. It contains five major museums including the Tokyo National Museum, the country's largest art museum, the Shinobazu Pond with its lotus fields, and cherry trees that produce one of the most famous and crowded blossom festivals in Japan each April. You are at the southern edge of the park, looking back over the city you have just walked through. From Senso-ji to here, you have covered the heart of old Edo — the merchant quarter, the river, the cemetery, the old shopping street, the hidden shrine, and now the park where the Tokugawa shoguns once hunted and where the man who ended their rule stands in bronze, walking his dog forever.

And then he turned against what he had made. The Meiji government moved with extraordinary speed to transform Japan along Western lines — abolishing the samurai class, banning the carrying of swords, creating a conscript army of commoners to replace the samurai military tradition. To Saigo, this was not modernization but the abandonment of the values that had made Japan worth defending. He resigned from government in eighteen seventy-three over a political dispute. In eighteen seventy-seven he led the Satsuma Rebellion — the last large-scale armed uprising of the samurai class against the modernizing state, with forty thousand men under his command.

He lost. The Meiji government's conscript army, trained and equipped on Western lines, was more effective than the samurai force it faced. The final battle was at Shiroyama, in Saigo's home Kagoshima, on September twenty-fourth, eighteen seventy-seven. Saigo was wounded in the fighting and died that morning — whether killed by enemy fire or by ritual suicide in the traditional manner, the accounts differ. He was fifty years old.

He was pardoned posthumously in eighteen ninety-one. This statue was unveiled in Ueno Park in eighteen ninety-eight, twenty-one years after his death, funded by public subscription. He is shown with his dog because he famously loved dogs and spent his later years hunting with them. He is one of the most beloved figures in all of Japanese history — not despite his rebellion but because of it. The man who understood both worlds and chose the older one. The film The Last Samurai, made in two thousand and three with Tom Cruise, was loosely based on his story, transposing an American adviser into the central role that Saigo's character occupied in fact.

Ueno Park itself, surrounding you, is one of the great green spaces of Tokyo — a former shogunal hunting reserve converted into Tokyo's first public park in eighteen seventy-three. It contains five major museums including the Tokyo National Museum, the country's largest art museum, the Shinobazu Pond with its lotus fields, and cherry trees that produce one of the most famous and crowded blossom festivals in Japan each April. You are at the southern edge of the park, looking back over the city you have just walked through. From Senso-ji to here, you have covered the heart of old Edo — the merchant quarter, the river, the cemetery, the old shopping street, the hidden shrine, and now the park where the Tokugawa shoguns once hunted and where the man who ended their rule stands in bronze, walking his dog forever.