Nishinomiya Jinja

photo by Yanajin33 · CC BY-SA 3.0

At 6:00 sharp on 10 January the gate opens: 5,000 people run 230 metres.

At six in the morning on 10 January, to the beat of a drum, the red doors of the gate (donated, according to tradition, by Toyotomi Hideyori) swing open and the worshippers run 230 metres to the shrine: the first three become the ‘fukuotoko’, the lucky men of the year. In January 2026 about 5,000 people ran; the winner was a 22-year-old student who fell and got back up halfway through the race.

Shinto shrine dedicated to Ebisu, god of fishing and commerce, and head shrine (総本社) of about 3,500 shrines of the same name across Japan. Its origins are uncertain; tradition links them to fishermen from Naruo who are said to have found the god's image in the sea. The entrance gate, in Momoyama style (late sixteenth century), was built between 1604 and 1609 and is now an Important Cultural Property. The main building (honden), once a National Treasure, was destroyed in the 1945 bombings and rebuilt in 1961.

ℹ️ The gate ritual is held only on 10 January, at 6:00, during the three days of the Tōka Ebisu festival (9–11 January), which draws more than a million visitors. The shrine's ordinary opening hours were NOT verified in this session (/worship/ page not found): see the doubts in the report.

🚉 Nishinomiya · 6 min walk

Sources: nishinomiya-ebisu.com · nishinomiya-ebisu.com · nishinomiya-ebisu.com · ja.wikipedia.org · kobe-np.co.jp

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