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Setonaikai NP, Kagawa
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The chronicles record Yashima Castle’s construction in 667, but its remains were unidentified for centuries. A wall was recognized in 1998; later excavations confirmed the gate, which was restored and opened to visitors in 2016.
Yashima Castle’s defenses stretched about 7 km, but natural cliffs formed roughly 90% of the line. At the gate, attackers still faced a 2.5 m step and an inner enclosure that funneled them into a narrow approach.
The Taira expected a sea attack at Yashima and hid their ships in a cove. According to the battle account, Yoshitsune approached by land and lit fires to make his force appear larger, sending the defenders back to their fleet.
In the famous Heike tale, Nasu no Yoichi shoots a fan from horseback during Yashima’s battle. The boulder said to be his horse’s foothold, Komadate Rock, lies in neighboring Mure and shows above the water at low tide—not on the summit.
At Yashima’s northern tip, a 45 m keyhole-shaped tomb was built around the start of the 5th century. Its stone coffin came from volcanic rock in Kyushu’s Aso region; the burial is thought to be linked to a local sea-trading leader.
Yashima was a true island during the 1185 battle. Reclamation linked it to Shikoku in 1637; in 1647, a later lord ordered the 5 m-wide Aibiki channel dug to separate it again. Locals joke that it lets you cross the sea in a few steps.
About 14 million years ago, lava filled a valley here. Its hard cap resisted erosion while surrounding granite wore away, leaving the old valley floor high and flat: Yashima is a landscape where low ground became the peak.
Yashima-ji’s “Snow Garden” is stone, not winter weather: white tuff behind the study hall gives the spot its snowy look. This kind of rock layer is known at only one other site in Kagawa.
Yashima-ji’s Inari shrine has tanuki guardians where foxes usually stand. Local legend says its shape-shifting spirit guided Kūkai through fog; the celebrated Yashima tanuki also appeared in Studio Ghibli’s Pom Poko (1994).
Yashima-ji’s story began, tradition says, on the opposite ridge: the Chinese monk Ganjin founded it in 754, and Kūkai is credited with moving it to its present site. Archaeologists have found remains of an earlier Buddhist hall near Senkandō.
Along the old pilgrimage path, the “Tatami Stones” are natural sanukite slabs, just 2–5 cm thick—not paving. Their name is said to echo a poem by Saigyō imagining the stones as a mat beneath the moon.
Yashima-ji’s main hall was rebuilt in 1618 and long thought to be Momoyama-era. During its dismantling for repairs in 1957, workers found Kamakura-period timbers and building techniques hidden in the structure.
Yashima’s Himebotaru fireflies are forest dwellers: their larvae live in damp ground and eat tiny snails and worms. Kagawa’s nature map notes adults flickering in the woods around 2–4 a.m. from mid-May to mid-June.
A Japan Tourism Agency guide records 79 bird species on and around Yashima, with more than 20 living there year-round. Ospreys patrol its coast, hover over fish, then plunge to catch them.
