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Joshin’etsukogen NP, Gunma
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At Manza Kogen Hotel’s Stone Garden open-air bath, 4 separate springs create milky white, yellow-green, yellow, and clear pools. The clear Tsumatori source has a measured pH of 1.6—remarkably acidic water.
In 1562, local lord Haneo Nyudo was taking the waters at Manza when the rival Kamahara clan seized the chance to retake its castle, according to Tsumagoi’s local chronology. A hot-spring visit became part of a Sengoku-era power struggle.
A local legend says the cave was named for a hunter’s dogs, Kuma and Shiro. When they barked at a giant serpent threatening their sleeping master, a supernatural twist turned their warning into his salvation.
Manza’s inns bring the surrounding fields to the table: Tsumagoi is renowned for Japan-leading summer–autumn cabbage shipments, and listed dishes include curry with grilled cabbage, Ginhikari trout, and sweets made with giant flower beans.
Manza’s rare native larch grove supplied seeds for trees planted across Agatsuma. In 1962, a German forestry professor came to identify the parent trees of larches planted in Germany; the forest service recalls that he was moved to tears.
A cave above Manza yielded Yayoi-period pottery, suggesting people were already using the hot-spring area in ancient times. Local histories propose the cave served as seasonal shelter for bathers, rather than a permanent settlement.
In 2000, 8 head-sized stones inscribed with Buddhist scripture were found inside Kumashiro Cave. Some characters appear to quote the esoteric Rishukyō text, and the calligraphy is thought to be centuries old.
Manza’s springs yield about 5.4 million liters of water a day, with source water around 80°C. That remarkable flow feeds a hot-spring village perched at roughly 1,800 meters.
At Manza’s Karabuki, rainwater and groundwater seep into an old crater, warm into steam, and escape with hydrogen sulfide gas. The plume is part of the living volcanic landscape, not simply water boiling from a spring.
Manza’s familiar sulfur smell comes from hydrogen sulfide, which also vents beyond the famous Karabuki plume. Local and national teams check gas levels, ground heat, and vegetation at the vents 4 times a year.
The 1987 Japanese hit Watashi o Ski ni Tsuretette (Take Me Skiing) used Manza Onsen Ski Resort as a filming location. The movie helped spark Japan’s ski boom and made Manza one of its emblematic slopes.
Manza’s hot springs were long used despite the harsh mountain climate, but winter was once considered too cold for even innkeepers to stay. The resort’s winter operations began only in 1935.
In autumn, Manza’s spotted nutcracker—called hoshigarasu in Japanese—carries pine seeds in its throat and hides them as food stores. This noisy mountain bird has a memorable way of preparing for winter.
At the Ushike pond wetland, mousen-goke looks like moss but is actually a carnivorous sundew. Sticky hairs on its leaves catch insects, and the plant produces tiny flowers in summer.
The Ushike pond wetland’s kobai-keisō has a feast-or-famine flowering rhythm: its especially abundant bloom comes only once every 2–3 years. The plant flowers there in June and July.
Beyond Manza, nearby Ogushi sulfur mine once supported more than 3,000 people, with a school and movie theater. A 1937 landslide killed 245; the mine later closed in 1971, leaving old ropeway towers among its traces.
On the nearby Kusatsu-Shirane slopes, komakusa grows in high gravel where few other plants can survive. After picking and trampling reduced its numbers, local junior-high students joined efforts to raise and plant seedlings.
