A balloon floats above the head of a young woman walking in the precincts of Yasukuni Shrine

Balloon in Shinto shrine — Shot at Yasukuni Jinja, a Shinto shrine in Kudan, Tokyo

Yasukuni Shrine, which was originally built to enshrine the war dead, attracts as many worshippers as any other shrine on New Year's Day, and the shrine grounds are filled with a peaceful atmosphere. Yasukuni Shrine, where Class A war criminals are also enshrined and which is often talked about as a political issue every August, and Yasukuni Shrine, which is crowded with people on their first visit to the shrine, don't look the same.

In Shintoism, deceased people are uniformly gods, and the good or bad they have done in the mundane world may be irrelevant. Most of the visitors to the shrine are probably not even aware of whether Class A war criminals are enshrined or not. I think most of them simply came to the famous shrine to pay their first visit.

When I arrived at the shrine, the grounds were crowded with visitors who had come to pay their first visit to the shrine, and I saw a girl walking in the crowd, smiling. Above the girl's head, a balloon was floating in the air. The way the balloon was floating seemed appropriate for the New Year.

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