Well worth seeing for its 6 complete galleries and the spaciousness
Gallery 1 covers the period from 37,000 years ago to the beginning of the 10th century. You can view the courses that shaped Japanese culture through earthenware and kofun burial tombs in the Paleolithic Era when humans first appeared in Japan and the gorgeous capital during the Nara Era.
Gallery 2 spans the 10th to the 17th centuries which go from the Heian to Azuchi-Momoyama Eras. Cultural aspects such as the Japanese language adopting the hiragana and katakana syllabaries and the birth of the juu-ni-hitoe ceremonial robes which were the precursors to the kimono are introduced, along with the communal landscape involving the castes of aristocrats, warriors and commoners.
Gallery 3 picks up on the lifestyle and culture of the people in Early Modern Japan which covered the 16th to 19th centuries. This was the age where the “city” connected with the current era was first created. Focusing on Japan’s biggest castle town of Edo, the structure and culture of urban society is clarified here.
Gallery 4 explores the culture of the Japanese archipelago through the many peoples living from Okinawa to Hokkaido. Beginning with the osechi cuisine that is eaten on New Year’s Day and the culture of the Matagi communities, various rites addressing the intangibles of festivals and apparitions are introduced.
Gallery 5 covers the late 19th century up to the 1920s. Emphasis is placed on Japan’s Westernization through the adoption of Western European culture, and its effect on urbanization and consumerism. Starting with the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 when the population of Tokyo exceeded 3 million, the problems of urbanization along with consumerism and mass entertainment sparked from a capitalist economy are recalled.
Gallery 6 deals with the period from the 1931 Manchurian Incident to the oil shocks of the 1970s. The changes in postwar Japanese lifestyle are introduced.