Qualla: Tojinbo

Tojinbo: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 663highland, CC BY 2.5. The monk fell in love with a princess, and for that he was murdered. According to legend, a Buddhist monk named Tojinbo, despised by everyone around him, became infatuated with a beautiful princess called Aya. A rival suitor lured him to these cliffs and pushed him into the sea. For years afterward, violent storms lashed the coast at the same time each year, said to be the dead monk's rage given form. It took another wandering priest, one with enough compassion to hold a memorial service for the reviled Tojinbo, to finally quiet the storms. The cliffs kept his name. Today, the columnar rock formations that bear the monk's legacy rise up to 30 meters above the churning Sea of Japan along a kilometer of Fukui Prefecture's coastline, one of Japan's most striking geological spectacles and one of only three places in the world where columnar joints of this type exist at such scale.

Read more: Tojinbo on Qualla

Image: 663highland | CC BY 2.5

Tojinbo: Twelve Million Years in the Making

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit っ, CC BY-SA 3.0. The rocks that form Tojinbo were born 12 to 13 million years ago during the Miocene Epoch, when volcanic activity along what is now the Sea of Japan coast forced magma up through layers of sedimentary rock. As the molten stone cooled, it contracted and cracked into columnar joint...

Read more: Tojinbo on Qualla

Image: っ | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tojinbo: Ghosts and Grudges

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 663highland, CC BY 2.5. Two competing legends explain the name. In one version, a corrupt Buddhist priest from a local temple so outraged the surrounding community that they dragged him to the sea cliffs and hurled him to his death. In the more elaborate telling, Tojinbo was not corrupt but lovelorn, a ...

Read more: Tojinbo on Qualla

Image: 663highland | CC BY 2.5

Tojinbo: The Watchman on the Cliffs

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 663highland, CC BY 2.5. Tojinbo carries a darker modern reputation. The cliffs became one of Japan's most well-known locations for suicide, with as many as 25 people jumping each year, a number that rose and fell with the country's economic hardships and unemployment rates during the Lost Decades. In th...

Read more: Tojinbo on Qualla

Image: 663highland | CC BY 2.5

Tojinbo: An Unlikely Savior

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Namazu-tron, Public domain. In an unexpected turn, the mobile game Pokemon Go may have contributed to a period of unusual safety at Tojinbo. Although 14 people died there in 2016, the cliffs saw no suicides for months during 2017. Shige attributed the change partly to the constant stream of players who came...

Read more: Tojinbo on Qualla

Image: Namazu-tron | Public domain