AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Tsukigaoka Shrine (月ヶ岡神社, Tsukigaoka-jinja) is a small, tranquil Shinto shrine set just behind Oki Port on Hahajima, the second-largest inhabited island of the Ogasawara (Bonin) chain—administratively part of Tokyo but reachable only after a long ocean voyage. Revered as the guardian deity (ujigami) of the island's Motochi settlement, it is the spiritual heart of a community that lives among some of the most isolated and biologically unique islands anywhere in Japan.↗
What makes the shrine memorable is its setting rather than grand architecture: a humble, leafy compound where the island's native birds gather, and—tucked beneath the grounds—the entrance to the old Kiyomigaoka limestone cave, an unusual natural feature folded into an act of worship. A few steps away, the port, the Ross Museum and Hahajima's WW II-era promenade make it an easy anchor for a half-day of island wandering.
A Guardian Shrine at the Edge of Tokyo
For all that it sits within Tokyo's prefectural boundaries, Hahajima feels worlds away—a coral-ringed island roughly two hours further out by ferry from Chichijima, which is itself a full day's sail from the mainland. Tsukigaoka Shrine lies in this remote setting near the island's main harbour at Oki, only a few minutes' walk from where the ferry lands and from the Motochi village that surrounds it. Listed in shrine records as the ujigami of the mother island, it is the place where islanders mark the rituals that bind their small community together.
