【Nasu】Seiji Fujishiro Museum – A fairy tale world of shadow picture that will make you want to stay there for hours

In this blogpost, I would like to introduce the Seiji Fujishiro Museum in Nasu, Tochigi prefecture.

I didn’t know about Seiji Fujishiro – not even his name – but after visiting this, I became a big fan because his world touched me a lot and I really appreciated his precise and delicate handwork.

Seiji Fujishiro Museum is a highly recommendable spot to visit, if you happen to come to Tochigi Prefecture. It is about one hour drive from the famous World Heritage Site of Nikko.

Seiji Fujishiro was born in Tokyo in 1924 and is a leading a shadow picture artist in Japan. He has created a unique world with his delicate composition and handwork. Even now, despite being 96 years old, he continues to enthusiastically work, delivering emotions, dreams and hope to many people.

The Seiji Fujishiro Museum was opened in 2013 with more than 100 artworks on display, Seiji Fujishiro Museum can be considered as the culmination of Seiji Fujishiro’s 70-year career.

The footpath to go deep into Seiji Fujishiro world

Now that I have completed the visit, I understand that the front gate is where Seiji Fujisjiro’s world begins. Before entering, we are welcomed by some shadow artworks of cats and dwarf – which are often picked up as a motif.

 

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, I sterilized alcohol at the main gate, wore rubber gloves and headed through the museum gate.

 

From here, I strolled about 200 meters on the footpath, where shadow artworks such like cat, dwarf, dog, frog guided me towards the museum building. My 2 years old daughter enjoyed them a lot. She was like “Oh look! I found a” frog! I found a cat again! This dog is so cute! “.

So, definitely, this museum can be great fun for kids and a recommended excursion for the whole family.

On the way, there is a church, where one can have a wedding ceremony.
It is a chapel created by Seiji Fujishiro himself and all the bricks and stained glass are handmade.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t enter the church because of COVID-19 related measures but I could take a peek inside and enjoyed the beautiful stained glass. A warm and wonderful church. It is clearly a work of Love and Passion!

Gradually approaching towards the museum building, you can see the café “La Vie” on the way. The dwarf chair is very cute. Actually “La Vie” is the name of Seiji Fujishiro’s cat.

 

Finally, I arrived at the museum entrance. The red and white parts on the front are automatic doors. I found that it’s a very cute entrance.

No photography is allowed inside the building, so I cannot show you the exhibits inside but please visit there and enjoy his works in person. Here is the picture of postcards I bought for my souvenir. Oh…I can’t tell you how attractive the real thing is…

Here is a video of the path to the museum (No sound).

Recommendable way to visit museum

Fujishiro Seiji Museum has a single entrance & exit, which means that you will come back through the same passage. Therefore, the best way to visit is to admire the artworks on one side and on the other side on the way back. The very kind and helpful staff recommended me to start with the right side of the wall and returning to the left side.

Also, the main works are displayed in the innermost room (and they are amazing, I wanted to watch it forever if I had time!), so if you are limited with time, you should go to the innermost room first.

Not only the main work, but all artworks are really beautiful and worth seeing, so it is said that it actually takes up two days to fully appreciate them. It sounds a lot but it makes sense. The time passes by in a blink of an eye, when you look at each of the parts in detail.

If you have sufficient budget, I believe it would be a much better experience to have a guide . This is because all notes in the museum are in Japanese only. The work itself is wonderful, so you can enjoy it without any explanation, but since Seiji Fujishiro himself thoroughly explains about his work, it will be much more fun but also profound, if you have someone help you understand it.