Winged kirin statues are installed on the Nihonbashi bridge that spans under the expressway

Statues of Qilin at Nihonbashi Bridge — Statues of Qilin on Nihonbashi Bridge

Ferocious-looking animals with wings sits atop Tokyo's Nihonbashi Bridge. First-time visitors might think this statues are Western dragons, but they are not. This bronze statues are of the Kirin, a legendary animal that appears in Chinese mythology. It is the Kirin depicted on the label of Kirin beer. Originally, kirin did not have wings, but the kirin in Nihonbashi was given wings because of the image of a kirin flying away from the starting point of a Japanese road.

Thanks to Kirin Brewery, many people are familiar with the Kirin, an imaginary animal. I am one of them. I was surprised when I heard that the bearded horse-like creature depicted on the label of the beer my father was drinking was named Kirin. I found it very strange that it had the same name, even though it bore no resemblance to the long-necked creature in the zoo. Giraffe is called Kirin in Japanese.

According to Kirin Holdings, when the company's predecessor, Japan Brewery Company, was about to start selling beer, many imported beers from the West had labels depicting animals such as wolves and cats, so an executive named Heigoro Shoda suggested, "There is a spirit animal called Kirin in the Orient, Heigoro Shoda, an executive in charge of the company, suggested that since there is a spirit animal called Kirin in the Orient, let's use it as a trademark, and decided on Kirin as the brand for the new beer to be sold. Good for them. If they had insisted on the fact that the kappa is native to Japan, the beer might have been called Kappa Beer instead of Kirin Beer. Sorry to the kappa, but Kirin is much cooler than Kappa.

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