The 2016 fault cuts across the lawn; the building was left as it was, and has been open since 2020.
The April 2016 earthquake split the ground of the Aso university campus, and the fracture is still there, open to the sky in the middle of the grass. Building number one was not demolished: it is kept standing with the damage from the quake still on it, and since 1 August 2020 you can go inside from 9:00 to 17:00, closed on Mondays.
One of the 10 bronze statues of the Straw Hat crew installed across Kumamoto Prefecture between 2018 and 2022, as part of the ‘ONE PIECE Kumamoto Fukkou Project’, the official reconstruction after the 2016 earthquake, linked to Eiichiro Oda, who is from Kumamoto. This one was unveiled on 9 October 2021.
ℹ️ Free, but only during museum hours: 9:00–17:00, last entry 16:30, closed on Mondays (or the next weekday, if Monday is a public holiday) and from 29 December to 3 January. When the museum is closed, the grounds and the car park are not accessible. At reception you collect a commemorative postcard.
🚉 阿蘇ファームランド (Aso Farmland) · 20 min walk
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Robin stands within the site of the earthquake ruins of Tokai University's former Aso campus, which houses the KIOKU earthquake museum: of the ten members of the crew, the archaeologist was chosen as the ‘narrator of history’, the one who keeps the memory of the earthquake.
Sources: kumamoto.guide · kumamoto.guide · kumamotojishin-museum.com · op-kumamoto.com · kumamotojishin-museum.com
Nearby
Aso Farm Land1.3 kmphoto by そらみみ · CC BY-SA 4.0
Kusasenri-ga-hama5.3 kmphoto by Young Juan · CC BY 3.0
Mount Aso — Nakadake Crater7.4 kmphoto by そらみみ · CC BY-SA 3.0
Nami Statue — Nishihara7.5 km