Kanamara Mikoshi

Kanamara Mikoshi is Japan’s most famous wooden statue and it has earned the admiration of tourists, both native and from far abroad. The story behind Kanamara Mikoshi begins over two centuries ago. On the evening of the fourth shindig in Japan, in January 1816. A wooden statue of a bodied Koi was discovered by a carpenter in a temple in Edo. This discovery gave the artist’s art an impulse to grow and he began making wooden figure of Koi figures and selling them to the highest bidder.

Legend says that Gomoku, the Lord of Dragon Sight, found the figure and fell in love with it. And spent all his fortune making repairs to the temple. One night, while he slept, Gomoku dreamed of a beautiful woman whom he had never seen. Suddenly, the carpenter heard a noise coming from the palace. And upon reaching the temple, found that it was his own father, still alive but in a coma. Gomoku took the beautiful woman to Edo and told her about the craft of carving Koi into wood.

It was during the night of the third day of the month of January that the artist had completed his first carving when a storm struck. A powerful earthquake and tidal wave came up and destroyed much of the city. The next month, another storm came up and this time a great flood destroyed the city. When the war broke out again in the 4th war of Japan in the Meiji Period, Kanamara Mikoshi saw an opportunity to revive his business and began carving again, finally becoming the most well-known artist in the country.