A young Chilean woman recently provoked a lot of ire in Japan when she posted a video of herself doing pull-ups on the gate of a Shinto shrine.
The influencer Marimar Pérez-Banus subsequently issued an apology and deleted the video, but we will probably not get the same from another young lady who posed semi-naked at a popular tourist attraction in Japan.
As netizens have discovered, there are actually lots of pics of foreigners doing silly things at places like Fushimi Inari, a Shinto shrine in Kyoto famous for its vast numbers of red torii gates that form labyrinthine corridors.
Here is ...
A 61-year-old Austrian man has been arrested for having sex with a partner in the grounds of a Shinto shrine in Kesennuma, Miyagi, on the morning of August 22.
The sexagenarian has been arrested on suspicion of disrespecting a place of worship, according to multiple media reports on August 23.
Curiously, the man has not (yet) been charged with public indecency, which might well apply in this case, since they were spotted going at it in broad daylight by other shrine visitors, who then notified the police.
The man was reportedly a tourist but it is not clear if his female partner (or ...
Last week, Japan was hit by Typhoon Lan. While Tokyo just suffered a bit of rain and wind, the west side of Honshu had more serious weather conditions, and public transport ground to a halt. And before that, Typhoon Khanun hit Kyushu and Okinawa. 'Tis the season.
One small consequence that nonetheless caught our attention, though, was for the sacred wooden phallus at Inyoseki Shrine in Miyazaki.
It was washed away by the typhoon and is reportedly floating in a small lake by a dam!
So if you encounter a giant cock in the water, don't panic and try to get it back to where it belongs. Your ...
The fertility/harvest festival held annually at Tagata Shrine in Komaki, Aichi, isn't as famous as the Kanamara festival, held near Tokyo, but is another example of an ancient Shinto event in which phallic objects abound.
Like with Kanamara, the Tagata Shrine honen festival makes for some very photogenic moments where a giant phallus newly carved from cypress is paraded around on March 15. This is led by the Shinto shrine's priests in all their finery. Women in robes also walk around holding smaller phallus objects.
Festivals are also about making money for the shrine, and Tagata Shrine, ...
The annual Kanamara Penis Festival is one of the most famous and popular in Japan and seems to be attended by as many foreigners as Japanese. While you probably won't find it promoted in any of the official government tourist information, sightseers to take snaps of the phallic objects of worship as well as sample the penis-shaped sweets. Cool Japan indeed.
Held every April in Kawasaki City, one of the highlights of the festival is a large pink phallic float apparently called Elizabeth.
Last year this was only on a four-wheeled trolley and visitors were disappointed by its lack of ...
The annual Honen (or Hounen) Matsuri was held recently, confirming once again what a horny religion Shinto is.
The festival in Aichi is Japan's second most famous fertility festival, after the now insanely popular Kanamara Festival in Kawasaki, which takes place next month.
Honen Matsuri takes place on March 15th, appropriately the day after White Day (when men give women chocolate).
As always, the Shinto rite featured parades of ceremonially dressed people and a giant phallus being taken to Tagata Jinja shrine.
Plus there were lots of phallic merchandise for sale, (if the web is to be ...
On April 7th the Kanamara Matsuri was held in Kawasaki, near to Tokyo, and one of the most popular of Japan's phallic fertility festivals.
The highlight of the festival is the parade of the giant cock through the streets as it is processed between two shrines. This is stroked and touched by the crowds as it passes.
This year saw the largest number of visitors ever, around 50,000 people and ten times more than the crowds were ten years ago. It is said to be now the largest festival of its kind in Japan.
There were times when television channels would pixellate images of the ...
You can rely on the Japanese to celebrate what's best about the world.
In Komaki, Aichi prefecture in central Japan, there exists the Honen Matsuri, a fertility festival held at Tagata Shrine in mid-March.
A festival that asks for a good harvest, the highlight is certainly the massive phallus that processes around the shrine. Unfortunately, despite the multitude of gods in the Shinto universe, in fact the cock is not worshipped as a deity in its own right.
Even more famous is the Kanamara festival at Kanayama shrine in Kawasaki, that features a massive pink cock and apparently grow ...
Kanamara Matsuri is a yearly festival in Kawasaki, Japan, where throngs of onlookers gather to cheer on a parade of giant phalluses.
Legend has it that in the olden days, a sharp-toothed demon hid inside a Kawasaki girl's vagina, and a local blacksmith built an iron penis to break its teeth and free the young woman. The penis resides in the local temple most of the time, but one day a year, it is taken out and paraded around the town, its carriers shouting "deka mara!" (big penis).
Shops line the streets of Kawasaki, selling the typical festival assortment of mochi, chicken skewers, and ...
