Shikoku is the least visited of Japan's four main islands, which means Uwajima — a coastal castle town in Ehime Prefecture at its southwestern corner — sits at a comfortable remove from the crowds that define the standard Japan itinerary. What you find when you arrive is a city with an unusual density of genuinely distinctive things: one of only twelve original surviving castle keeps in the country, a food culture built on the sea, a parade demon that terrorizes the streets in late July, and a shrine museum that surprises almost everyone who enters.
The Castle With a Secret Shape
Uwajima Castle was designed by master architect Takatora Todo in 1601 and is one of twelve castle keeps in Japan that survived without reconstruction — original timber, original stone, original structure. Most of Japan's famous castles are postwar concrete reproductions. This one is not.
The detail worth knowing before you arrive: the castle grounds appear from the outside to be a standard square layout. They are not. The actual plan is an irregular pentagon — a deliberate design to disorient attacking forces who would approach with assumptions about geometry that the castle would quietly undermine. It is evidence that the designer was thinking about psychological warfare as well as physical defense.
The Ox-Demon That Became a Guardian
Uwajima's most distinctive folklore figure is the Ushi-oni — a creature with the body of an ox and the head of an oni demon, historically associated with the coastal waters. The legends converge on the same theme: a terrifying presence from the sea, eventually incorporated into the city's protective mythology rather than remaining purely a threat.
In late July, the Uwajima Ushi-oni Festival brings enormous parade floats in the demon's form — long red necks, elaborate constructions requiring teams to operate — through the city streets. The scale is significant enough that timing a visit around it constitutes a legitimate reason to choose July over other months.
The anime Nurarihyon no Mago (Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan) references Uwajima directly in its Ushi-oni characters, bringing a secondary layer of pilgrimage traffic to a city whose folklore tradition predates that attention by centuries.
The Garden, the Shrine, and the Museum Nobody Expects
Tensha-en, built in 1866 by the 7th Date lord, centers on a pond deliberately shaped like the kanji character 心 — kokoro, meaning heart or spirit. In April, white wisteria blooms over the water in a way that makes the garden's seasonal reputation entirely earned.
Warei Shrine announces itself with a 12-meter stone torii gate — the largest stone torii of its kind in Japan — framing the approach before you reach the shrine itself. It is the spiritual center of the Ushi-oni festival tradition.
Taga Shrine presents as a standard Shinto shrine from the outside and contains, within its buildings, a multi-story fertility and sex museum with artifacts from across Japan and internationally. It exists, it is well-attended, and it belongs in any honest account of what Uwajima contains.
What the Sea Produces
Uwajima's rias coastline creates protected water conditions ideal for aquaculture — Akoya pearls and red sea bream farmed in quantities that have made fish central to local food identity.
The expression of this is Uwajima-style Taimeshi: fresh raw sea bream sashimi over warm rice, dressed with raw egg and sweet soy sauce. Elsewhere in Ehime, taimeshi means sea bream cooked with rice in a pot. Here it means the freshest possible fish consumed with the simplest possible preparation — a fisherman's meal that has never needed improving.
On Screen
The 2016 film The Book Peddler (Umi Suzume) was shot in Uwajima, following a writer who returns to her hometown and a bicycle-powered library, using the city's coastal character as both setting and subject. For fans, the correspondence between film and location is direct and walkable.
