Gather round, folks. Today I want to look at Uwajima, a place like Mt. Oe, the stronghold of the drunken demon Shuten Doji, that you’d otherwise probably never hear of in daily life. This time the thread is the Ushi-oni. This terror from western Japan is a class of Japanese yokai often associated with beaches, rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water. Literally translating to “Ox Demon” or “Cow Demon,” depending on how you interpret the word ushi, this fiend is most commonly depicted as a spider-like creature with six legs and long singular claws, one at the end of each appendage.
Throw in a tendency to prey on, kill, and eat humans, then top this hideous amalgam off with the head of an ox, and you have quite the nightmarish beast, if I do say so myself. In a number of coastal tales from western Japan, the Ushi-oni also hunts alongside the Nure-onna, a “wet woman” yokai often depicted with a serpent-like body who appears at the water’s edge carrying what looks like a baby. She hands the bundle to a passerby, only for it to become crushingly heavy and pin the victim in place so the Ushi-oni can attack, a broader bit of folklore distinct from Uwajima’s own slaying legend.
There are tales of the Ushi-oni all over Japan in places like Shimane Prefecture and Wakayama Prefecture, but nowhere truly compares to those hailing from the city of Uwajima. In fact, one of the best-known Japanese Ushi-oni legends tells of the monster terrorizing villagers and livestock here until a mountain ascetic was summoned to deal with it. According to the tale, he confronted the monster with a conch and mantra before driving a sword between its eyebrows and cutting the beast apart. Its blood then supposedly flowed for seven days and nights, creating a pool in the process. Needless to say, Uwajima’s relationship with the Ushi-oni didn’t exactly start out as a friendly one.
On that note, how this rural part of the island went from slaying the Ushi-oni to celebrating it is a bit of a complex tale. According to one popular account, the tradition traces all the way back to Japan’s invasions of Korea in the late 1500s, during which an ox-like armored siege device supposedly inspired the form that later made its way back to Uwajima. Unfortunately, the actual historical trail is nowhere near that clean. As such, the exact origins remain unclear, though Ushi-oni most likely appeared in local shrine festivals sometime during the middle of the Edo period (1603–1868) before gradually spreading throughout the surrounding Nanyo region of southern Ehime Prefecture.
What we do know is that the Ushi-oni eventually became deeply intertwined with the local culture of Uwajima. The beast stopped being something only to fear, and enormous versions made from bamboo, cloth, and palm fibers came to accompany religious processions, where they were believed to drive away evil spirits. Today, this tradition takes center stage during the annual Uwajima Ushi-oni Festival, held every July from the 22nd through the 24th. For three days, giant Ushi-oni with long necks, fearsome heads, and sword-shaped tails roam through the city alongside dancing, fireworks, and other revelry before the celebrations culminate on the final evening.
Of course, you don’t need to go to the festival to get your fill of all things bovine in Uwajima. This city in Shikoku is also one of the few places in Japan where traditional bullfighting is still practiced, with enormous animals weighing upwards of a ton locking horns inside a circular ring. Unlike Spanish-style bullfighting, there is no matador trying to kill the animal. Instead, two bulls simply push and grapple until one turns away from the fight. Regular tournaments are still held several times throughout the year at the Uwajima City Bullfighting Arena, meaning there is another decidedly more literal way to encounter Uwajima’s obsession with all things oxen.
All things considered, Uwajima is definitely a day trip to consider when you’re visiting Ehime Prefecture. Additionally, it’s also home to one of Japan’s 12 original castle keeps, so if you’re a completionist, you’ll definitely want to check this part of Japan off the bucket list. When you consider its deep connections to the Ushi-oni myths, Uwajima is also perfect for fans of yokai as well. What’s more, it even has its own tasty delicacies, including Uwajima Taimeshi, a local take on sea bream rice served with sashimi and egg. Put together, it can cover history buffs, foodies, and folklore followers in one stop.
How to Get There
Let’s pause for a second to cover some key logistics about how to get to Uwajima and how you can experience this corner of Ehime Prefecture so deeply tied to the mythology of the Ushi-oni. As noted, it’s located on the southwestern side of the island of Shikoku, and to get there, you’ll probably be coming down from Matsuyama City. Assuming you’re coming from Tokyo, the easiest option is to simply fly from Haneda Airport to Matsuyama Airport, a journey of around an hour and a half. Alternatively, if you’re like me and prefer traveling by rail, you can take the bullet train to Okayama before transferring to the Limited Express Shiokaze for the ride across the Seto Inland Sea and down to Matsuyama.
Once you’re actually in Ehime Prefecture, you’ll then need to make your way down to its southern reaches. Thankfully, this part of the journey is also pretty straightforward. The Limited Express Uwakai runs directly from Matsuyama Station to Uwajima Station, with the trip taking around an hour and 20 minutes depending on the service. Alternatively, if you’re renting a car for your time on Shikoku, you can simply follow the expressway south from Matsuyama, which takes roughly an hour and a half under normal conditions. Either way, getting to Uwajima is easy enough that you can comfortably use Matsuyama as the jumping-off point for exploring this corner of Ehime.
Technically, you could also come up from Kochi, but this route is considerably less direct. From the prefectural capital, you’ll first need to make your way west to Kubokawa before transferring onto the Yodo Line for the journey through the Shimantogawa river valley and onward to Uwajima. The railway itself is actually one of the more scenic ways to approach southern Ehime, but services are so infrequent that you’ll want to check the connections carefully beforehand. Unless you’re already exploring western Kochi Prefecture or working your way around Shikoku, coming down from Matsuyama is generally the easier option.
Uwajima Ushi-oni Festival
Let’s now get back to the Ushi-oni and the festival that celebrates it. Every July, Uwajima essentially hands the city over to these enormous monsters. The stars of the show are giant Ushi-oni measuring around five to six meters long, each built around a bamboo frame and covered in either red cloth or palm fibers. With a long movable neck, a fearsome head, and a sword-shaped tail, they look every bit as bizarre as the yokai that inspired them. Groups of participants then carry these creations through the streets.
Of course, this raises an obvious question: why celebrate something as vile as an ox-headed, spider-legged Ushi-oni? Somewhere along the way, Uwajima’s version of the beast took on a much more protective role. Traditionally, the giant Ushi-oni would accompany religious processions through local communities, thrusting their long necks toward individual homes as they went. These monsters were believed to help drive away evil, not terrorize the people inside. In that sense, it’s a lot like Akita’s Namahage, another band of terrifying demons who barge into homes only to bless the household and drive off misfortune rather than do any harm.
These days, that tradition has evolved into a much larger summer celebration. Throughout the three-day festival, Ushi-oni are paraded through Uwajima while children blow distinctive bamboo horns and teams maneuver the creatures by swinging their long necks from side to side. There are dancing events, children’s processions, fireworks over the water, and plenty of other festivities around town, with the largest parade saved for the final day, when numerous versions of the creature take to the streets at once. If you came for the yokai, that is about as concentrated a dose as you’ll get.
The celebrations reach their climax late on the final evening with a religious ritual called the Hashirikomi. At nearby Warei Shrine, portable shrines are carried into the waters of the Sukagawa beneath torches and fireworks, and participants gather around a tall sacred bamboo pole planted in the water before scrambling up it to seize a ceremonial object fixed to the top. It’s quite the spectacle, and between this ritual and the Ushi-oni roaming the streets, it’s easy to see just how thoroughly this once-terrifying monster has been woven into the culture of modern Uwajima.
Visit Uwajima Castle
Beyond the Ushi-oni, if you’re in Uwajima, you’d be a fool not to go to the castle. Uwajima Castle is one of Japan’s 12 surviving original castle keeps, and though it is not as impressive as, say, Matsuyama Castle to the north, it is still one of the 12. Better yet, Ehime Prefecture is the only prefecture in Japan with more than one of these original keeps to its name, as both Matsuyama Castle and Uwajima Castle have survived into the present day. If you’re a castle completionist, that makes this corner of Shikoku something of a two-for-one deal.
The castle sits on a hill overlooking central Uwajima and traces its present form back several centuries. Todo Takatora completed an earlier keep here in 1601, but the three-story structure standing today was built around 1666 under Date Munetoshi, the second lord of the Uwajima branch of the Date family. That branch came from Sendai: Uwajima’s first Date lord, Hidemune, was the eldest son of Date Masamune, the famous one-eyed daimyo. It’s a neat link between this remote corner of Shikoku and one of Japan’s most recognizable samurai names.
Compared with Matsuyama Castle, the keep is considerably smaller and the surrounding complex far less extensive. That said, you’re climbing to an actual 17th-century wooden castle keep, not a modern reconstruction, complete with surviving stonework and historic gates around the hill. Thankfully, Uwajima Castle is also ridiculously easy to work into your day. From Uwajima Station, it’s about a 15-minute walk to the castle grounds and roughly 35 minutes to the keep once you factor in the climb. There is no ropeway or other shortcut like at Matsuyama Castle, so you’ll need to hoof it up the stone steps and wooded paths under your own power. Still, the entire visit can be done on foot from the station.
The Uwajima City Bullfighting Arena
Well, while we can’t exactly watch two of the spider-like Ushi-oni fiends duking it out, Uwajima does offer the next best thing. The region is one of the few places in Japan where traditional bullfighting is still practiced, with enormous animals locking horns inside a circular ring until one finally turns away from the fight. Unlike the style of bullfighting most people associate with Spain, there is no human fighter trying to kill the animal here. Instead, it’s simply bull against bull, with handlers standing nearby as the two animals shove, twist, and try to overpower one another. Some of these beasts weigh more than a ton, too, so the whole thing is every bit as imposing as you’d imagine.
Unfortunately, this isn’t something you can just show up and see whenever you happen to be in Uwajima. Regular tournaments are only held four times per year, on January 2nd, May 3rd, July 23rd, and the fourth Sunday of October. Of these, the July tournament is obviously the one that fits best with everything we’ve covered thus far, as it falls right in the middle of the Uwajima Ushi-oni Festival. If you time your trip correctly, you can therefore spend part of the day watching actual bulls slam into each other before heading back into town for giant mythological ox demons, fireworks, and all the other revelry. Talk about staying on theme.
The fights take place at the Uwajima City Bullfighting Arena, a domed facility located a little north of the center of town. On tournament days, free shuttle buses run from Uwajima Station and the Uwajima Bus Center, meaning you don’t need a car to get there. Adult admission currently costs 3,000 yen at the door or 2,500 yen in advance, while children of junior-high-school age and younger can enter for free. Even if your visit doesn’t line up with one of the four tournaments, the arena itself can normally be visited for free on weekdays between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM. Still, if seeing the real thing matters to you, definitely build your trip around one of the scheduled bouts.
Uwajima Beyond the Ushi-oni
Aside from the stuff mentioned thus far, there are a few other points of interest in the area that are worth visiting if you’re going to make the time down here. Easily the strangest of these is Taga Shrine, a fertility shrine located a short walk north of Uwajima Station. Among the usual shrine trappings, you’ll find all sorts of phallic imagery, including a roughly two-meter-long wooden member displayed beside the main building. As if that weren’t enough, there’s also an adults-only sex museum attached to the shrine containing erotic artwork and objects from Japan and around the world. Needless to say, this probably isn’t your average stop on a tour of Shikoku.
For something considerably more conventional, Tensha-en and the nearby Uwajima City Date Museum are both easy additions to a visit to the castle. Tensha-en was created in the 1800s as a retirement retreat for one of Uwajima’s former feudal lords and remains a traditional strolling garden centered around a pond, bamboo, wisteria, and other seasonal plants. Meanwhile, the Date Museum preserves armor, household objects, and other materials connected to the history of the family that ruled Uwajima for generations. Since both attractions sit within walking distance of the castle, they’re easy enough to tack on if you’re already spending the day exploring the historical center of town.
Finally, don’t leave Uwajima without trying some of the local meibutsu. The obvious one is Uwajima Taimeshi, which differs from the cooked sea bream rice found elsewhere in Ehime by serving fresh slices of sea bream with raw egg, soy sauce, and dashi before pouring the whole mixture over hot rice. There’s also Jakoten, a local soul food made by grinding small fish whole, bones and all, before flattening and deep-frying the mixture. Other regional dishes include Uwajima Satsuma and plenty of fresh seafood from the surrounding Uwakai. After castles, yokai, fighting bulls, and giant wooden phalluses, ending the day with a bowl of Taimeshi seems positively normal.
Other Nearby Attractions
As alluded to before, Uwajima is effectively the end of the easy travel corridor running south from Matsuyama City. You can technically continue around Shikoku toward Kochi from here, but doing so requires considerably more logistical gymnastics, especially if you’re relying on public transportation. As such, Uwajima makes far more sense as part of a larger trip planned around the capital of Ehime Prefecture. In fact, day trips exactly like this are one of the reasons I included Matsuyama on my list of 60 trip anchors to plan your travels around. Uwajima works best as one piece of a wider southern Ehime itinerary radiating out from Matsuyama.
So, what is there to do in this neck of the woods? Well, you have Ozu immediately to the north, which has a castle that you can actually rent for the night if you’ve got the budget for it. The reconstructed wooden keep offers an absurdly extravagant castle-stay experience where a single group gets the place to itself. Just beyond Ozu is Uchiko, an old merchant town that once prospered through the production of wax. Today, its preserved historic district is lined with traditional residences from that era, while the beautifully restored Uchiko-za theater gives you another reason to stop. Together, the two towns make for an easy historical detour on the same corridor connecting Uwajima with Matsuyama.
All this said, you should definitely plan on spending some time in Matsuyama City as well. The capital of Ehime Prefecture is home to two of the region’s biggest attractions, starting with Matsuyama Castle, another of Japan’s 12 surviving original castle keeps and a far more extensive complex than the one down in Uwajima. Then there’s Dogo Onsen, one of Japan’s oldest hot spring districts and home to the wonderfully historic Dogo Onsen Honkan bathhouse. Throw in the city’s convenient tram network, plenty of restaurants serving local specialties, and a handful of other temples, shrines, and museums, and Matsuyama easily warrants at least a full day of its own before thinking about excursions.
Finally, Uwajima is not the only place in this neck of the woods connected to the Ushi-oni. Similar legends turn up elsewhere across western Japan, including other parts of the island of Shikoku such as Kochi and Tokushima, where stories once again tell of monstrous Ushi-oni terrorizing rural communities before eventually being slain. In Kochi, one tale even centers on a pool where an Ushi-oni was supposedly killed by a hunter, with its blood said to have flowed into the water for seven days and nights. Interestingly, that same seven-day detail also appears in the Uwajima legend, showing just how much these stories seem to overlap as they spread from place to place.
If you really want to keep chasing the folklore, though, one of the more interesting stops is Negoro-ji in Kagawa Prefecture. Located outside Takamatsu, this Japanese temple has its own Ushi-oni legend involving a monster that supposedly terrorized the area centuries ago before being killed by a skilled archer. Better yet, Negoro-ji actually leans into the story today, with a wonderfully grotesque statue of the creature standing on the grounds and even supposed horns from the slain beast preserved at the temple. Needless to say, it’s a pretty fitting follow-up if Uwajima has left you wanting to dig even further into the stranger corners of Ushi-oni folklore.
Until next time travelers…
