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Yakushima NP, Kagoshima
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Taikoiwa is more than a lookout: tap different spots on this granite slab and it rings like a drum, with the pitch changing across the rock. Its name means “Drum Rock.”
Bibinko-sugi is a young cedar growing from an old stump. Islanders named it in a 1999 public contest because the pair resemble a parent carrying a child on their shoulders; “bibinko” is Kagoshima dialect for a shoulder ride.
More than 550 moss species have been recorded in Shiratani’s 424-hectare forest. The green carpet covers rocks, old stumps and fallen wood, turning the forest floor into a patchwork of tiny habitats.
Shiratani’s moss-covered woods helped inspire the forest imagery in Princess Mononoke. Yakushima Town also identifies places including the Moss-Covered Forest, Tsuji Pass and Taikoiwa among the film’s landscape inspirations.
The stone-paved Kusukawa Trail is more than a forest path: in the Edo period, it carried cedar “hiraki”—thin roofing boards made here and paid as tax to the Satsuma domain. Hikers still follow parts of the old route.
Yayoi Sugi’s branching crown and complex trunk made it unsuitable for timber, so Edo-period loggers left it uncut. The unusual shape that saved the tree later made it one of Shiratani’s best-known cedars.
Yayoi Sugi was often said to be 3,000 years old, though forestry estimates range from 800 to 2,500 years. A 2024 typhoon toppled it; managers kept it in place and monitor the vegetation growing around it.
Before the 2025 hiking season, a “Forest and Water Opening” ceremony was held at Shiratani to pray for safe journeys. About 20 people from local government, park, police, rescue and forestry services attended.
Yakushima is World Heritage-listed, but Shiratani itself lies in the UNESCO property’s buffer zone, not its inscribed core. The ravine is still inside Yakushima National Park—two protected-area boundaries that are easy to mix up.
