Anorisaki Lighthouse was added to Your Favorites!
Ise-Shima NP, Mie
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
Lit on April 1, 1873, Anorisaki was Japan’s 20th Western-style lighthouse—and the first in the country to use a rotating, many-sided Fresnel lens. Its turning lens sent a flash out to sea instead of a steady glow.
The original 1873 light was a white, 10.91m wooden octagon; today’s 16m tower has a 2.9m-square plan, a round lamp room and an octagonal steel lantern. Its crisp geometry helped earn cultural-property registration in 2013.
“Anori fugu” isn’t a separate species: it’s wild tiger puffer weighing at least 700g, landed mainly at Anori Port. Mie Brand describes Cape Anori’s waters as a spring nursery before the fish move to faster offshore currents in autumn.
The lighthouse-side café serves sweets made with kinko, Shima’s traditional dried sweet potato. Its name is said to come from its resemblance to dried sea cucumber, also called kinko; ama divers and fishers once enjoyed it as a handy snack.
A Coast Guard account traces a ship-guiding flame here to 1681: a lantern wrapped in oil-paper burned rapeseed oil, and on stormy nights people added firewood to strengthen the light. The modern lighthouse came much later.
At Anori’s landings, auctions can take place right aboard returning boats: inn and restaurant owners bid alongside wholesalers, limiting handling of the live fish. Since 1984, local fishers have also worked with Aichi and Shizuoka crews to manage stocks.
Coastal erosion repeatedly undermined the cape, forcing the light to move back from its edge. After another retreat, the earlier wooden lighthouse was replaced in 1948 by the square reinforced-concrete tower standing here today.
Near Anori Cape, destroyer Harusame ran aground in a storm on November 23–24, 1911; 44 sailors died. A Shima City account remembers local residents working without pause to help with rescue and the aftermath.
Anorisaki was a filming location for the 1957 Japanese movie “Yorokobi mo Kanashimi mo Ikutoshitsuki” (“Times of Joy and Sorrow”), a story about a lighthouse keeper and family moving between posts. The film’s story also brings them to Anori.
Nearby Anori’s puppet theater, locally called deko-shibai, flourished as ships brought Osaka Bunraku techniques, puppet heads and costumes to this port. The shrine tradition has been passed down for more than 400 years.
At nearby Anori Shrine, the puppet theater uses a stage built in 1860 with a boat-bottom shape. Mie Prefecture describes it as one of only 3 surviving examples of this unusual stage form in Japan.
Anori’s puppet plays paused in 1926 and returned in 1950, but a New Year’s ritual continued: 3 Sanbaso puppets were offered in prayer for safe voyages and good catches, even while the main performances were on hold.
Anori tradition traces the puppet theater to 1592, when local lord Kuki Yoshitaka is said to have allowed villagers to perform after visiting Anori Shrine in thanks for military success. It is a cherished origin story, not a proven starting date.
