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Museum · Kudanshita

Showakan (National Showa Memorial Museum) 昭和館

A Kudanshita museum of everyday life in wartime and postwar Japan (1935–1955): ration books, air-raid hoods, black-market goods and a recreated Showa-era living room.

Hours10:00–17:30 (last entry 17:00)
ClosedMondays (Tue if Mon is a holiday), year-end
PriceAdult (permanent exhibition): ¥400
Seniors 65+: ¥360
High school / university student: ¥200
Junior high and under: Free
Getting thereKudanshita Station (Tozai / Hanzomon / Shinjuku Line, exit 4), 1 min
Time needed1–1.5 hours
Best timeAny weekday
Address1-6-1 Kudanminami, Chiyoda City, Tokyo
Websiteshowakan.go.jp

About

Showakan is run by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and focuses not on battles but on how ordinary families lived through the hardships of the war years and the reconstruction that followed. The 7th floor covers wartime: evacuated schoolchildren's letters, ration coupons, padded bomb-shelter hoods, children's toys made from scrap and the farewell flags given to departing soldiers. The 6th floor moves into the occupation and recovery period, with black-market goods, early televisions and household electric appliances that marked Japan's new prosperity. Displays are poignant, low-key and well presented, with English captions. A free library of photographs and newsreels and periodic special exhibitions on Showa culture (such as postwar cinema) round it out.

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Open in Google Maps · Info checked 2026-10-09

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