Samurai Museum
The Samurai Museum in Tokyo's Shinjuku district is a fun way to experience samurai culture with sword demonstrations and cosplay.
Samurai Museum サムライ ミュージアム
The Samurai Museum in Kabukicho, Shinjuku is a fairly recent museum that has quickly become very popular with foreign visitors (despite the relatively high entrance fee).
As well as exhibits of samurai swords, armor and other weapons including guns, visitors can try on samurai armor and try their hands at samurai cosplay.
Suits of armor, Samurai Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Suits of armor, Samurai Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Samurai Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Samurai Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Exhibits
The Samurai Museum is on two floors. Visitors are given a tour of the exhibits by enthusiastic English-speaking guides who at first demonstrates a number of samurai sword moves and lets out a blood-curdling scream for good measure.
The detailed explanation includes information on the weapons on display and what was happening in Japanese history at the time of the rise of the samurai including the Mongol invasion of Kyushu in the 13th century.
Visitors learn that samurai warriors used disposable blades as after a few strikes the blade was no longer sharp.
Samurai Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Samurai Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Samurai Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Samurai Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Most of the suits of armor on display are not antique pieces, however, but more recent reproductions. If you want to see the real things you will need to head to the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park.
As well as the swords there are also guns on display. Guns were first introduced by the Portuguese and other Europeans and were soon being copied and produced in Japan.
Their use on the battlefield was to chance the dynamic of samurai conflict in such battles as Sekigahara in 1600, which lead to the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate after the victory of Ieyasu.
Overall, the Samurai Museum is more of a fun activity for young people and parents with kids than the serious scholar of samurai culture and history.
Samurai Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Samurai Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Samurai Museum Tokyo Hours
Open 10.30 am-9 pm; last entry 8.30 pm
Admission
1,800 yen.
Access
Samurai Museum
Eiwa Dairoku Bldg 1F, Kabukicho 2-25-6, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0021
Tel: 03 6457 6411
The Samurai Museum is an 8-minute walk from the East Exit of Shinjuku Station on the Yamanote Line and various other subway and railway lines or 4 minutes from Seibu Shinjuku Station.
Samurai Museum, Tokyo
