Category: Asakusa

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In the Asakusa episodes of Demon Slayer, one building rises above everything else on the skyline: a tall, slender tower glowing over a pond. That tower was real. It was called Ryounkaku, and for more than thirty years it was the symbol of Asakusa. Today it is gone, and most visitors walk past the spot where it stood without noticing.

In Part 1, we stood at Kaminarimon. In Part 2, I take you west into Rokku, Asakusa’s old entertainment district, to find where the tower stood, and then back to Senso-ji to see what the disasters of the 20th century left behind.

Quick facts

Ryounkaku: Tokyo’s first skyscraper

Ryounkaku, nicknamed “Asakusa Juni-kai” (the Twelve Storeys), opened in 1890. It was about 52 meters tall, at a time when almost nothing in Tokyo stood higher than two or three floors, so it could be seen from all over the city. Visitors paid admission to climb to the top and look out over Tokyo.

It also had Japan’s first electric elevator. The elevator, however, broke down so often that it was shut down within a year of opening, and most visitors climbed the stairs.

On September 1, 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake struck. The tower broke apart above the 8th floor, and the remaining structure was demolished by army engineers later that month. This gives us a useful clue about the anime: if Ryounkaku is still standing, the story must take place before September 1923. And because a streetcar still runs in front of the temple (see Part 1), it is also before the Ginza Line subway opened in 1927.

Anime vs. history: the tower over the pond

The anime shows Ryounkaku rising behind Hyotan Pond, a gourd-shaped pond that once sat in the middle of Rokku. Compare it with a photograph taken from almost the same angle in the 1890s:

What matches: the composition. In both, the pond fills the foreground, low trees and buildings line the far bank, and the tower stands alone above them, reflected in the water. The animators clearly worked from views like this one, which appeared again and again on postcards of the time.

What the anime adds: night and light. The real Rokku was famous for its electric lights and theaters, and the anime turns that into a glowing fantasy scene. The pond itself no longer exists. It was filled in from 1951, and the land was sold partly to help pay for rebuilding Senso-ji’s main hall after the war. Buildings and streets of Rokku now cover the site.

Walk to where the tower stood

From Tsukuba Express Asakusa Station, take Exit A1 and you come out on Rokku Broadway. Walk straight north along this street.

On your left, look for the building that houses Asakusa Engei Hall and Asakusa France-za Engeijo Toyokan, two theaters for rakugo storytelling and comedy. The colorful banners lining the street in front of them are one of the places where you can still feel the Asakusa of the anime. As Tanjiro walks through the crowds of Asakusa, the street he passes appears to be around here.

At the north end of the street, you reach an OK Store supermarket (2-14-5 Asakusa). This is where Ryounkaku stood. In front of the store is a small memorial plaque engraved with the tower. Stand here and look up: for over thirty years, one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo rose from this spot.

The shortcut to Senso-ji

From the tower site, most visitors would walk around to Kaminarimon. Don’t. The shortcut is Okuyama Omairimachi, a small shopping street that leads straight to the west side of the temple grounds. Enter from the end near UNIQLO.

Bonus: there are public restrooms right by the exit on the Senso-ji side, which are not easy to find in crowded Asakusa.

What the disasters left behind

The Great Kanto Earthquake did more than bring down Ryounkaku. Fires spread across the city, and in Asakusa Ward more than 90 percent of households lost their homes. In that sea of fire, Senso-ji’s main hall and five-storey pagoda survived, almost miraculously. But their luck ran out 22 years later. On March 10, 1945, the Tokyo air raids burned both. The main hall you see today was rebuilt in 1958, and the pagoda was also rebuilt after the war.

Three stops inside the temple grounds show this history.

1. The tub that saved the temple’s treasure

Just before the main hall, on the west side, is Awashima-do, a small hall. In front of it stands a large metal rainwater tub made in 1770.

During the war, the temple feared that Tokyo would burn. On November 18, 1943, the monks placed Senso-ji’s sacred main image, a statue of the bodhisattva Kannon, inside this tub, and buried it deep under the main hall. The hall burned in 1945, but the statue survived underground. It was dug up safely on March 7, 1947.

2. The main hall

The main hall burned in the 1945 air raids and was rebuilt in concrete in 1958. Look closely and you will see how faithfully it follows the old design.

3. The ginkgo that still carries the scars

Walk to the southeast side of the main hall, near Nitenmon Gate. Here stands a huge ginkgo, said to be about 800 years old. It was hit during the 1945 air raids, and the inside of its trunk is still blackened by fire several meters up. It is one of the few things in Asakusa that saw both the Asakusa of the anime and the Asakusa of today.

Asakusa can feel like a place where time stopped in the Taisho era. In fact, it was destroyed twice in just over twenty years and rebuilt each time. What you see is not a survivor, but a city that kept rebuilding itself on the same ground plan.

Best time to go

Go early in the morning or at night. Staying at a hotel nearby makes this easy.

• The temple grounds are open 24 hours, so you can see everything on this route at any time of day.
• The main hall itself is open 6:00–17:00 (from 6:30 between October and March). At night you can view it from outside but not enter.
• Every evening from sunset until about 23:00, the main hall, five-storey pagoda, Hozomon Gate and Kaminarimon are lit up.
• Early mornings are quiet, cool and clear. Many locals and hotel guests jog through the temple grounds before the crowds arrive.

Good to know before you go

• Ryounkaku itself is gone. The site is now a supermarket, with only a memorial plaque. Come for the story, not for a building.
• This route enters Senso-ji from the west, the opposite of the classic approach. You miss the build-up of walking through Kaminarimon and up Nakamise to the main hall. If this is your first visit to Asakusa, consider doing Part 1’s route as well.
• Kaminarimon is a long detour from the tower site, so start from Tsukuba Express or the Rokku side.

Getting there

• Tsukuba Express, Asakusa Station, Exit A1: about 2 minutes on foot to Rokku Broadway (closest)
• Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, Tawaramachi Station: about 8 minutes

See the classic side with a guide

This route enters Senso-ji from the west, so it skips the classic approach through Kaminarimon and Nakamise. If you would like to see that side too, with someone to tell you the stories behind it, this two-hour walking tour with an English-speaking guide starts beside Kaminarimon and takes you along Nakamise Street to Senso-ji and into the back streets, with some street food along the way. Prices may change, so check the details before you book.

Dress up in Taisho style

The Taisho era was a time of “haikara” fashion, when Japanese and Western styles mixed freely. The anime’s costumes are simplified for animation, but real Taisho fashion was full of stylish details. Several shops in Asakusa rent Taisho-romance style kimono, with dressing and hairstyling included. Kimono rental shops are mostly open during the day, so plan your kimono walk for daytime.

Once you are dressed up, why not see Asakusa from a rickshaw? Jidaiya, the same company that rents Taisho-romance kimono, also runs rickshaw rides of 30 minutes to an hour, with pullers who can guide you in English.

Where to stay in Asakusa

To walk this route early in the morning or at night, stay close by.

Asakusa View Hotel Annex Rokku

Why choose: Right in front of the Ryounkaku site, and steps from Tsukuba Express. Ideal for an early-morning walk.

Asakusa View Hotel

Why choose: A large hotel about one minute’s walk west of the tower site, with views over the Asakusa rooftops toward Tokyo Skytree.

Next time

In Part 3, we leave the temple behind and follow the Sumida River by water bus from Asakusa to Odaiba.

Aozora Walks is a fan-made travel guide and is not affiliated with the official Demon Slayer franchise. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba © Koyoharu Gotouge / SHUEISHA, Aniplex, ufotable. Historical photographs: National Diet Library Digital Collections (public domain).

This post contains affiliate links. If you book through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

If you have watched Demon Slayer, you probably remember the night Tanjiro arrives in Asakusa: a glowing shopping street packed with people, lanterns everywhere, and a streetcar rattling past in the foreground. It feels like a fantasy city. But almost everything in that scene was real.

I am a geography teacher who lives in Asakusa. In this series, I walk through the places that appear in the anime and explain what has changed since the Taisho era (1912–1926), what survived, and why. In Part 1, we start at the most famous spot of all: Kaminarimon.

Quick facts

Short on time? A small-group walking tour with an English-speaking guide covers Kaminarimon, Nakamise and Senso-ji in about two hours.

The Asakusa Tanjiro saw

The Asakusa episodes are set in the Taisho era, when Asakusa was Tokyo’s biggest entertainment district. Crowds came for the temple, for the shops on Nakamise, and for the theaters and cinemas of Rokku, the district just west of the temple. Towering over it all was Ryounkaku, a twelve-storey tower with Japan’s first electric elevator.

Asakusa in the Taisho era and today. Schematic map by Aozora Walks.

The animation studio clearly studied old records of the city. Look closely at the Kaminarimon scene and you will notice three details that tell you it is not modern Asakusa.

1. There is no Kaminarimon gate

Today, the giant red gate with its huge paper lantern is Asakusa’s symbol. But in Tanjiro’s time, it did not exist. The gate burned down in 1865, and for almost a century there was no permanent gate here. The current Kaminarimon was only rebuilt in 1960, with a donation from Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic. Even without a gate, people still called this street “inside the Kaminari Gate” — you can see those words printed on the old photograph below.

2. A streetcar runs in front of the temple

In the anime, a streetcar passes along the main road in front of Nakamise. That line really existed. Today you will not find it, because the streetcar has been replaced by something underground: the Ginza Line. It opened between Ueno and Asakusa in 1927, just after the Taisho era ended, as Japan’s very first subway. Its Asakusa Station is right beside Kaminarimon, so when you arrive by subway, you are following the same route as the old streetcar, just a few meters below.

3. The kaminari okoshi shop on the corner

On the left corner as you face the gate stands Tokiwado, a shop selling kaminari okoshi, a crunchy puffed-rice sweet that has been Asakusa’s classic souvenir for generations. The shop is in the same place today. The building itself, however, is not from the Taisho era. It was rebuilt after the Tokyo air raids of 1945.

Why so little of Taisho Asakusa survives

Asakusa was destroyed twice in just over twenty years. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 brought down Ryounkaku and burned much of the district. Then, in March 1945, the Tokyo air raids burned it again, along with the main hall of Senso-ji itself.

As a geographer, what fascinates me is what came back. Buildings were lost, but the shape of the place survived: the straight line of Nakamise leading from the main road to the temple, the entertainment district of Rokku to the west, and the river to the east. Asakusa was rebuilt again and again on the same pattern. That is why, even in 2026, you can stand here and still feel the Asakusa of the anime.

Where to see the anime’s view today

Here is the best part. There is a place where you can see Kaminarimon and Nakamise from almost the same angle as the anime: the Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center, directly across the road from the gate.

The building itself is worth a look. It was designed by Kengo Kuma, one of Japan’s leading architects, whose work in Tokyo includes the National Stadium built for the 2020 Olympics, Takanawa Gateway Station, and the Nezu Museum. Its stacked, house-like floors are a modern take on traditional Japanese rooflines.

Take the elevator to the 8th-floor terrace. It is free and open until 10 p.m. Looking north, you will see the gate below you and Nakamise running straight toward the temple. Come around sunset if you can: as the lights come on, the street starts to look a lot like the night Tanjiro arrived.

Anime vs. today: the same street, 100 years apart

Here is the scene from Episode 7 next to the view I took from the 8th-floor terrace at night. Compare them, and the geography of Asakusa jumps out.

What stayed the same: the layout. In both pictures, Nakamise starts at the main road and runs in a straight line to the temple gate at the far end, with shops packed along both sides. The street plan has survived an earthquake, a war and a century of rebuilding.

What changed: almost everything built on top of that plan. In the anime, there is no Kaminarimon at the entrance, and a streetcar runs along the main road in the foreground. Today, the red gate rebuilt in 1960 stands at the bottom of the frame, the streetcar has been replaced by the Ginza Line running underground, and taller concrete buildings now line the low wooden shopfronts of the Taisho era.

Local tips

• The view from the 7th floor is actually even better for photos. Take the elevator to the 8th floor, then walk down the stairs.
• Every floor has clean restrooms, which are surprisingly hard to find in crowded Asakusa.
• Staff at the information desk speak English and can help with maps and questions.

Good to know before you go

The center itself has very few downsides: it is free, open every day, and right in front of the gate. A few things to keep in mind:

• The terrace closes at 10 p.m., so plan night-view visits accordingly.
• It occasionally closes for maintenance. Check the official website before you go.
• Even at sunset, it is much quieter than the street below. The only wait is usually a few minutes for the elevator on the ground floor.
• Ryounkaku, the tower in the anime, no longer exists. Only a memorial stone marks where it stood. I will take you there in a later part of this series.

Getting there

• Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, Asakusa Station, Exit 1: about 1 minute on foot (closest)
• Toei Asakusa Line, Asakusa Station, Exit A4: about 3 minutes
• Tobu Skytree Line, Asakusa Station, main exit: about 3 minutes
• Tsukuba Express, Asakusa Station, Exit A1: about 8 minutes

Make a half day of it

Kaminarimon is just the entrance. Walk up Nakamise to Senso-ji, then explore the back streets around the temple. You can easily spend half a day in Asakusa without getting bored. Tokyo Skytree is also close: about 10 minutes by Toei bus, or one stop on the Tobu Line.

Explore Asakusa with a guide

If you want to hear the stories behind the temple and its streets, a small-group walking tour with an English-speaking guide is a great way to start your visit. For something more memorable, try a rickshaw ride. The pullers know the neighborhood inside out.

This two-hour walking tour with an English-speaking guide starts right at the police box beside Kaminarimon, then takes you along Nakamise Street to Senso-ji and into the back streets around the temple, with some street food along the way.

Where to stay in Asakusa

Staying in Asakusa lets you see Nakamise early in the morning and late at night, when the day-trip crowds are gone.

Richmond Hotel Premier Asakusa International

Why choose: Modern, comfortable rooms within walking distance of Nakamise and Kaminarimon.

Onyado Nono Asakusa

Why choose: A Japanese-style hotel with a natural hot-spring bath, a relaxing end to a day of walking.

Asakusa View Hotel

Why choose: A large hotel with views over the Asakusa rooftops toward Tokyo Skytree.

Next time

In Part 2, we head west to Rokku, Asakusa’s old entertainment district, and find the spot where Ryounkaku once stood. Read Part 2: Ryounkaku, the Tower That Vanished →

Aozora Walks is a fan-made travel guide and is not affiliated with the official Demon Slayer franchise. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba © Koyoharu Gotouge / SHUEISHA, Aniplex, ufotable.