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Shikotsu-Tōya NP., Hokkaido
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Enma yakisoba must obey 3 rules: Hokkaido-wheat flat noodles, a sesame-rich spicy sauce, and ingredients from Noboribetsu or nearby. By March 2026, diners had enjoyed 700,000 servings of this local specialty.
Local legend says Hell’s cauldron opens on August’s last weekend so Enma and his demons can visit. The Jigoku Matsuri began in 1964, and local junior-high students carry its demon mikoshi through town.
At nearby Oyunuma, sulfur spring water bubbles up at about 130°C, while the pond surface is only 40–50°C. Its outflow cools as it passes through the forest, feeding a natural streamside footbath.
Noboribetsu is nicknamed the “department store of hot springs”: about 10,000 tons emerge daily from sources spanning 9 spring types, with temperatures from 45°C to 90°C. That is remarkable variety in one resort.
Jigokudani has 15 named “hells,” including Kenzan, Tessen and Chinoike—“Sword Mountain,” “Iron Spring” and “Blood Pond.” Their names map the dramatic geothermal features that inspired the valley’s devilish reputation.
A 1666 Kannon carved by monk Enku with a single hatchet is enshrined at the Hell Valley lookout. A 1911 forest fire hid it; it was later found charred black and returned to a small shrine.
Ainu people reportedly valued Noboribetsu’s waters as medicinal baths long before the modern resort. In 1845, explorer Matsuura Takeshiro visited and wrote about the springs, 13 years before the resort’s founding date.
Noboribetsu’s resort grew from sulfur mining: in 1857, merchant Okada Hanbei built workers a bathhouse. In 1858, carpenter Takimoto Kinzo opened an inn after, local history says, the waters helped his wife Sata’s skin ailment.
Enma’s mechanical float was built for the 30th Jigoku Matsuri in 1993. Outside festival time, the King of Hell performs inside his small shrine at 7 scheduled times a day.
The line from Noboribetsu Station to the onsen changed from horse power to steam in 1918, then to electric cars in 1925. It closed in 1933—a busy 18-year run for one mountain railway.
Local tradition says that in 1861 a Nanbu-clan sulfur miner washed an injured eye in the spring below Yakushi Nyorai-do and recovered. He left a stone monument in thanks; the spring is still called Menoyu, “Eye Bath.”
The forest around Hell Valley became a national Natural Monument in 1924. Its flora is unusually diverse for Hokkaido, including roughly 60 tree species and 110 kinds of herbs, close beside the steaming volcanic landscape.
The Environment Ministry’s 2001 “100 Fragrant Landscapes” included “Noboribetsu Hell Valley steam.” Here, sulfurous air is officially part of the scenery—not just something visitors notice.
Sengen Park’s geyser, fed by a hot-spring stream, erupts roughly every 3 hours right in the resort town. The volcanic plumbing reaches beyond the dramatic crater at Hell Valley.
Noboribetsu preserves the Ainu name nupur-pet, translated as “dark-colored river” or “cloudy river.” The place-name carries a piece of local landscape history that predates the hot-spring resort.
During the Russo-Japanese War, Noboribetsu Onsen was designated a recuperation site for wounded soldiers. The role helped spread the springs’ reputation beyond Hokkaido.
