Ikutama Shrine

This guide to Ikutama Shrine in Osaka traces its founding, according to tradition, some 2,700 years ago, and its forced relocation in the 1580s when Toyotomi Hideyoshi wanted the bluff for Osaka Castle. It follows Yonezawa Hikohachi, remembered as the father of Kamigata rakugo, Osaka's comic storytelling tradition, said to have spun his first stories on these grounds before festival crowds. Look for the small monument to him among the shrine buildings, near the unusual three-gabled main hall raised within a couple of years of the move.