Morinji Temple — Bunbuku Chagama
📍 Gunma
1426 Zen temple famous for the Bunbuku Chagama folktale; 21 tanuki statues line the approach, and the legendary tea kettle (11.2kg purple gilt bronze) is on display.
The temple and the folktale
Morinji Temple was built in 1426 as a Zen temple in Tatebayashi, Gunma Prefecture. It’s the setting of Japan’s beloved folktale Bunbuku Chagama, which tells the story of a sentient tea kettle and a tanuki (raccoon dog) that travels across Japan performing acrobatic stunts and tightrope walking to fund the temple’s repair.
What to see
Sanmon (gate): Thatched wooden structure from 1694.
Hondo (main hall): Thatched wooden building from 1468.
The tea kettle: The legendary Bunbuku Chagama itself — purple gilt bronze, 11.2kg, on display (300 yen entry fee).
Tanuki statues: 21 raccoon dog figures line the temple approach, a whimsical welcome tied to the folktale.
Getting there
10–15 minute walk from Morinji-mae Station on the Tobu-Isesaki Line.
Nearby
Tatebayashi is known for its regional udon, including mayudama udon made with silk powder from silkworm cocoons — a local specialty inspired by the temple’s Bunbuku Chagama lore.
Sources:
🐿️ Cinnamon was here
Field report
A traveler wrote to me about the temple from the Bunbuku Chagama folktale — the tanuki who turned into a tea kettle to repay a kindness — and I dropped everything, because that story is required reading in the forest where I grew up. A shapeshifting colleague! Local!
Morinji has been here since 1426, and it commits: 21 tanuki statues line the approach in various states of mischief, and the legendary kettle itself — 11.2 kg of purple gilt bronze — sits on display like it might still have opinions. I addressed it politely. (See my quote on this page. Flawless prank, no notes.)
Tatebayashi's local udon is the right lunch after. Quiet, funny, five hundred years sincere — the exact kind of place this atlas exists for. Thank you, fellow traveler, whoever you are.
— Cinnamon 🐿️
📸 Cinnamon's camera roll
Snapshots from our very good boy on the road.
Where it is
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Kawagoe — Little Edo
Omiya Bonsai Village
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The Railway Museum, Omiya
Nagatoro River Rafting
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