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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Yamanashi
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At Lake Shoji, small Mount Omuroyama sits directly in front of Fuji, making the giant volcano look as if it is cradling a child. Locals call this alignment Kodaki Fuji—“Fuji holding a child.”
About 1 km east, a rain-filled hollow sometimes becomes Akaike, nicknamed Fuji’s “sixth lake.” Water tests in 2020 found it came mainly from recent rain—not, as long assumed, from Lake Shoji underground.
Lake Shoji is a western remnant of the vast Senoumi lake. Fuji’s 864 Jōgan eruption buried most of Senoumi in lava; Shoji’s jagged southern shore marks where the flow stopped.
In 1895, British-born Harry Stewart Whitworth chose Shoji after a year exploring Fuji’s foothills and opened a hotel. His “Japan Shoji” promotions drew overseas visitors, making this remote lake an early international resort.
Fuji-ko pilgrims performed suigyō, ritual water purification, on Shoji’s north shore. A local tale credits En no Gyōja with bathing here, but the area was still part of the much larger Senoumi at that time.
“Fuji Five Lakes” is a surprisingly recent name: entrepreneur Ryohei Horiuchi coined it in 1927 for a newspaper scenic-spot contest. The grouped lakes won selection, and the contest name caught on.
The lakeside village of Shoji grew as a post town on the rugged Nakadō Ōkan, a trade route linking the Kofu Basin with Suruga, now Shizuoka. This quiet Fuji-viewing spot once served travelers crossing the mountains.
Poet Yosano Akiko stayed overnight at Shoji in 1932 and wrote a tanka about rain tapping a boat while Fuji appeared faintly beyond it. A monument at Tategōhama preserves the lake’s place in her travel poetry.
Shoji’s winter visitors once came for skating and wakasagi ice-hole fishing. In 1985, the lake hosted Japan’s first national high-school canoe racing championship; canoe did not join the official Inter-High until 2006.
Until the early Shōwa era, people near Shoji used Aokigahara hinoki for everyday crafts: silk-reeling frames, shoulder poles, hoe handles, chopsticks and geta. The forest supported a working community, not just today’s scenic backdrop.
