Kichijōji

• 1. Introduction

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  Kichijōji has been voted the number one place in Japan that Japanese people would like to live every year since the 1990s. Those polls are published by the magazine CNN GO. Kichijōji sits in the city of Musashino, on the western edge of Tokyo, its commercial core spread north and south of Kichijōji Station. What makes a neighborhood earn that kind of loyalty, decade after decade? And why have animators, manga artists, and game designers kept returning to its streets to set their stories?

• 2. Displacement and Settlement

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  Lakshmi, the Hindu and Buddhist goddess known in Japan as Kichijōten, lent her name to a temple called Kichijō-ji, once located in what is now Bunkyō City, Tokyo. In 1657, the Great Fire of Meireki destroyed it. The fire consumed not just the building but the entire town in front of the temple gate. That district, called Hongo Motomachi in Edo, sat near where Suidōbashi Station stands today. The shogunate cleared the land for daimyō residences. The families who had lived and farmed there were left with no homes and no fields.

  "Reno" and "Mureno" were the names of official reed lands the shogunate offered as substitute territory. Each applying household received a rice stipend and a house construction loan, due within five years. The samurai Sato Sadaemon and Miyazaki Jinemon, working alongside the farmer Matsui Jurozaemon, led the physical work of relocation. Together they opened the eastern district of what is now Musashino and moved the community there.

  Tamagawa Aqueduct water reached the Musashino Plateau, turning what had been a poorly watered uninhabited expanse into farmland. The land was parceled into thin rectangular plots running along Itsukaichi Kaidō, now designated as Tokyo Metropolitan Route 7. Some migrants received plots stretching more than 1,000 meters long. But the soil would not support wet rice. All the fields became dry-soil plots. The settlers named their new village Kichijōji, carrying the name of a destroyed temple to land it had never touched.

• 3. A Neighborhood in Business

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  Sun Road, the covered shopping street running north from Kichijōji Station, organizes the neighborhood's commercial life into a single walkable corridor. Halfway along it stands the Buddhist temple Gessō-ji, graveyard and all, tucked between shops. Shinto shrines mark the northern end, hosting occasional festivals with goldfish-scooping games, sweet food stalls, and local dishes. North, east, and south of the station, a large nightlife district offers restaurants, izakaya, and live music venues. To the northeast, the stretch between Tachikawa and Shinjuku along the Chūō Line also holds a red-light district with cabarets, bars, and pink salons. The manga and anime companies Coamix and Bee Train maintain their headquarters in Kichijōji. Studio Ghibli was once based here before relocating.

  The Keiō Inokashira Line links Kichijōji Station to Shibuya in roughly 20 minutes on the express service. The Chūō Line reaches Tokyo Central Station in around 30 minutes. Seikei University occupies the northwestern corner of the district, running an escalator school. The institution teaches students from elementary through university level, set among rows of large trees.

• 4. Inokashira Park

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  Inokashira Park, south of Kichijōji Station, is the source of the Kanda River. Its large central lake draws crowds every spring for hanami, the tradition of gathering under cherry blossoms. Street performers, small cafes, and food vendors fill the paths that ring the lake throughout the year. A petting zoo sits within the park, and a larger zoo lies nearby. The Ghibli Museum stands in the neighboring city of Mitaka, just outside Kichijōji's boundaries but close enough that visitors often pair it with a walk through the park.

• 5. A Setting for Stories

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  Ocean Waves, the Studio Ghibli film, opens at Kichijōji Station and returns there for its final scene. That symmetry reflects the pull the neighborhood holds for Japanese storytellers. Shin Megami Tensei places its protagonist in Kichijōji, living with his mother and dog. In Persona 5 Royal, players visit the neighborhood to meet Kasumi Yoshizawa and Goro Akechi. The visual novel NG builds its world around Kissōji, a fictional city modeled directly on Kichijōji. Manga set here range across decades: Tokyo Tribes by Santa Inoue, Fourteen by Kazuo Umezu, and Itazura na Kiss by Kaoru Tada. Great Teacher Onizuka by Toru Fujisawa and Sgt. Frog by Mine Yoshizaki join the list. A manga titled Is Kichijōji the Only Place to Live?, by Hirochi Maki, takes the neighborhood's pull as both its premise and its title.