Only Those Who Are Called
Stand Beneath the Mother Tower
A white tower, 30 meters tall. A prayer offered to his mother by Taro Okamoto — the greatest sorcerer of 20th-century Japan. Step into the sacred ground of the man who swallowed the Jomon, the atomic bomb, Mexico, and the shamans of Okinawa, and vomited it all back out as colossal art.
Prologue — There Are Doors That Open Only for the Called
Tama Ward, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture. From the south exit of Mukogaoka-yuen Station, you walk toward Ikuta Ryokuchi. As you push deeper and deeper into the wooded hills, the view suddenly opens. And there it is. A colossal white tower, 30 meters tall. The “Mother Tower.” This is a prayer that Taro Okamoto — the greatest sorcerer of 20th-century Japan — offered to his mother, Kanoko.
“This is not merely a work of art,” Okamoto himself said. He was not an artist. He was a modern sorcerer disguised as an artist. Almost no Japanese person is aware of this.
The Jomon, the atomic bomb, Mexico, the Kabbalah, Eliade, the shamans of Okinawa, and his mother — a man who swallowed them all inside himself and spat them out as colossal works. “Art is an explosion.” Most Japanese remember Okamoto as the odd man who screamed that phrase with a contorted face in a TV commercial. But the real Taro Okamoto stood far beyond that strangeness.
And here is a startling fact worth noting. The Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki, is closed for renovation from the end of March 2026 until the end of March 2029. In other words, for about three years, the indoor exhibits cannot be seen. But rest assured. Okamoto’s largest and most important work, the “Mother Tower,” stands outdoors. So even during the closure, it can be seen. And Ikuta Ryokuchi itself is a place where Okamoto’s spirit still drifts.
Only those who are called arrive. And this is the place that changes forever those who arrive. From here, we open that door.
Chapter 1 — Who Was Taro Okamoto: A Sorcerer Born into the Sacred Family
To understand Taro Okamoto, you must first know the household he was born into. It was not an ordinary family. It was an abnormal space that would later be called, in the history of Japanese literature, the “Sacred Family.” The one who named it so was Yasunari Kawabata, the Nobel laureate in literature. “That house sacrifices life itself for the sake of art. The child is treated as a partner in dialogue, as if he were an artist in his own right.” That “child” was Taro Okamoto.
His father was the cartoonist Ippei Okamoto. Scouted by Natsume Soseki at the Asahi Shimbun in the Meiji-Taisho era, he made his name as a cartoon reporter and pioneered political and social satire in Japan. His mother was the poet and novelist Kanoko Okamoto, born in 1889. She studied under Akiko Yosano, and later immersed herself deeply in Buddhist scholarship, leaving vast writings on Shinran and the Tannisho. Her works “The Crane Fell Ill,” “Endless Cycle,” and “An Aging Geisha” are still read today. Into this pair, Taro Okamoto was born on February 26, 1911, in Aoyama, Tokyo.
And here the strangeness of the Okamoto household begins. Kanoko kept, besides her husband Ippei, several “lovers” — and openly, living in the same house. Ippei accepted this, and even befriended Kanoko’s lovers himself. “For the sake of art, everything is permitted.” That was the rule of the Okamoto house.
Kanoko treated Taro as a fellow artist. She would wake him in the middle of the night to read him a tanka she had just written, and ask her three-year-old, “What do you think of this?” The child was not embraced. Instead, he was drawn into debates on art. Taro later wrote: “I spent my whole life waiting to be loved by my mother.” Yet he revered her above anyone. “Everything in my view of art comes from my mother.” This “absence of the mother” and “longing for the mother” would later give birth to his masterpiece, the “Mother Tower.”
Kanoko taught Taro: “The common sense of the world is a lie.” “Think for yourself.” And Taro lived exactly that way. In an age when everyone said Yayoi culture was Japan’s tradition, he cried out that the Jomon was Japan’s true art. In an age when “Progress and Harmony” was the theme of the Osaka Expo, he erected the Tower of the Sun and declared that humanity had not progressed at all. He overturned common sense head-on. Why could he do this? Because his extraordinary mother never installed the world’s common sense inside him. He crossed to Paris still “empty,” and everything poured into him raw.
Chapter 2 — The Man Who Studied Art and Ethnology in Paris: The Door Called Marcel Mauss
In December 1929, the 18-year-old Taro Okamoto set out from Kobe with the family accompanying his father Ippei to cover the London Naval Conference. In January 1930 they reached Paris via Marseille. His parents went on to London, and Taro decided to stay in Paris alone. From then until his return in 1940, he lived in Paris for about ten years. In this decade he built the foundation of the Taro Okamoto we know. He plunged, all at once, into four utterly different worlds.
First, painting. Paris then was the center of the world’s art. In the summer of 1932, Taro was struck by Picasso’s work at the Galerie Paul Rosenberg, and in 1933 he joined “Abstraction-Création,” the most cutting-edge abstract art movement. But he did not remain there, leaving in 1937.
Second, Surrealism. The unconscious, dreams, madness, sex, death — a movement that made the “underside” of the human being its subject. In 1936, Taro’s oil painting “The Wounded Arm” was recognized by André Breton. Then came a decisive encounter. In January 1936, at a meeting of an anti-fascist political group, one man was giving a speech: Georges Bataille. Taro was deeply moved. “The essence of the human is not rationality. It is eros, death, and the drive toward the sacred.”
Bataille tried, in earnest, to found a new religion: the secret society “Acéphale (the Headless One).” In July 1938, Taro Okamoto, aged 27, joined it on Bataille’s recommendation — the only Japanese member. Taro Okamoto was a member of one of the most radical and dangerous secret societies of 20th-century Paris. This is no exaggeration; it is recorded in the official chronology of the Taro Okamoto Museum. The members gathered on moonless nights beneath a giant oak, split and beheaded by lightning, in a forest outside Paris at Saint-Germain.
Third, ethnology — Marcel Mauss, a giant of modern sociology. In 1938 Taro was struck by a visit to the Musée de l’Homme at the Palais de Chaillot, switched his major at the University of Paris from philosophy to ethnology, and studied under Mauss. Mauss taught: “Magic, art, and religion were originally not separate. For ancient peoples, they were all one.” This exploded inside Taro. If Bataille’s Acéphale was the site of “practice,” Mauss was the one who organized it into “theory.” What Taro truly sought was “magic” — the moment a human being connects with the invisible forces of the world.
Fourth, war. In February 1939, his mother Kanoko died in Japan. In September of that year, World War II broke out. In June 1940, the Nazis occupied Paris, and Taro set off home on the last repatriation ship. Then, in May 1945, an air raid on Tokyo burned every one of the Paris-era works he had brought home. This was Taro Okamoto’s first “death.” But he did not despair. “My past self is dead. I will simply start again from zero.” In the burned-out ruins of postwar Japan, he encountered a single earthen vessel: Jomon pottery. The moment he saw it, Taro cried out: “What is this?!”
Chapter 3 — The Shock of Jomon Pottery: This Is Exploding, This Is Sorcery
On November 7, 1951, at the Tokyo National Museum, the 40-year-old Taro Okamoto was walking through the halls. Postwar, the Japanese still dragged the wounds of defeat. What was then called “Japanese art” meant the Yayoi bronze bell, the Buddhist statues of Horyu-ji, the ink paintings of Sesshu — a refined, serene beauty of harmony. Jomon relics were treated as mere archaeological material, dismissed as “primitive, barbaric.”
That day the museum was holding a special exhibition, “Ancient Japanese Culture.” Among the calmly displayed relics, Taro saw a deep-bowl vessel from the Middle Jomon period. Its surface writhed with violent patterns — rough, dissonant, excessive form. He stopped before it and cried out, “What IS this?!” His voice rang through the hall.
An ordinary person would think it eerie, meaningless. But Taro saw it: the “prayer” that Jomon people, 5,000 years ago, had poured into the pottery. The “sorcery.” The Jomon were hunter-gatherers, and their world was filled with invisible forces. Spirits dwelt in mountains, rivers, trees. Everything was a negotiation with the invisible. The pottery was a tool for that negotiation. The complex patterns on the pottery are not decoration. They are incantations to call out to the invisible forces.
In February 1952 he published his essay “Dialogue with the Fourth Dimension — On Jomon Pottery” in the art magazine Mizue. “The Jomon is the origin of Japan.” A shock ran through the scholarly world. And the essay held a decisive line: “The patterns of Jomon pottery bear an intensely religious, magical meaning — in other words, they point toward the fourth dimension.”
Intriguingly, Taro suddenly slipped the phrase “atomic bomb” into this essay on Jomon pottery. “We no longer hold dialogue with the fourth dimension. Yet the atomic bomb detonates, two worlds collide, and grotesque economic crises erupt.” Taro believed that, just as the Jomon held dialogue with invisible spiritual forces, modern people must hold dialogue with the invisible energy of the nuclear. Jomon sorcery and the atomic bomb — he saw them as the same “force of the fourth dimension.” This would later give birth to his masterpiece, the “Myth of Tomorrow.” By then, he was no longer an artist. He was a modern shaman, descended to recover a forgotten sorcery.
Chapter 4 — Dialogue with the Fourth Dimension: The Man Who Saw Jomon Sorcery and the Bomb with the Same Eyes
The word “fourth dimension” runs through all of Taro Okamoto’s work. The “fourth dimension” he pointed to — the invisible, spiritual world — was not his own invention. It is a concept common to ancient religions worldwide. Buddhism calls it “the other shore,” Shinto “the eternal world,” Tibetan Buddhism “the intermediate state,” the Jewish Kabbalah “the Sephirot.” The names differ, but all mean the same: an invisible, other world.
Taro thought: “Modern people have lost their dialogue with the fourth dimension. So modern art has lost its power. It has become mere decoration, without soul.” But here his genius appears. He asked, “Then what should modern people hold dialogue with?” — and found the answer in the atomic bomb. The bomb is an “invisible” force. Radiation the eye cannot see, yet it decides life and death. It is the same as the wrath of the gods. Just as the Jomon feared lightning and prayed to the gods, modern people must fear the bomb and pray to something.
Here his two masterpieces are born: the “Tower of the Sun” and the “Myth of Tomorrow.” The theme of the 1970 Osaka Expo was “Progress and Harmony of Mankind,” and some 64 million people visited. But Okamoto strongly rebelled against this theme. “Progressivism is what created the atomic bomb.” And he resolved: “In the very center of this festival of modernism, I will erect a Jomon god-image that smashes modernism.” That was the Tower of the Sun. About 70 meters tall. The “Face of the Sun” (present) on the front, the “Black Sun” (past) on the back, the “Golden Face” (future) at the top — three faces piercing past, present, and future. And a fourth face underground: the “Sun of the Underworld.”
At the Expo, visitors entered from beneath the tower. The three spaces of “Life,” “Human,” and “Prayer.” The “Prayer” space was where Taro poured the most effort. God-images and masks gathered from all over the world, and at their center, the Sun of the Underworld. This was a shamanic ritual space built at the very heart of modern Japan. Passing through the underground, visitors climbed the “Tree of Life” inside the tower, re-experiencing some four billion years of biological evolution. This is exactly the same structure as the shamanic “initiation of death and rebirth.” Some 64 million people underwent that ritual without knowing it.
The other work, the “Myth of Tomorrow.” A colossal mural, 5.5 meters by 30 meters, subtitled “Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” At its center, a human skeleton with only its bones left after the bomb’s detonation, its mouth wide open, laughing. Not a scream, but “the figure of human pride exploding in wrath.” The Tower of the Sun and the Myth of Tomorrow form a pair, both treating the same theme: humanity nobly overcoming its own tragedy. Where Picasso’s “Guernica” depicted the tragedy of war, Okamoto’s “Myth of Tomorrow” depicted the human power to overcome it.
Chapter 5 — The Tower of the Sun Is a God-Image: The Kabbalah’s Tree of Life and Eliade’s Passage Through the Womb
The Tower of the Sun is not a sculpture, nor a monument. It is a god-image. This is not a metaphor. Takumi Ishii, a leading scholar of Okamoto, explains: “The Tower of the Sun was made as something like a living creature, an artificial life.” Taro described the “Tree of Life” inside it as “the bloodstream,” “the artery of the Tower of the Sun.” Tower and Tree of Life were, for Taro, an inseparable whole.
Two decisive ideas lie behind its design. The first is the “Tree of Life” of the Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah. Taro named the 41-meter structure inside the tower the “Tree of Life.” But biology normally calls such an evolutionary tree a “phylogenetic tree”; calling it a “Tree of Life” is highly unusual. Why? The answer lies in his library. Kurt Seligmann’s “The History of Magic,” said to have been owned by Okamoto, explains the Kabbalah in detail, and its central image is precisely the “Tree of Life (Sephirot).” The Tower of the Sun’s “Tree of Life” is a reproduction of the Kabbalah’s Sephirot at the center of the Expo.
The second is the thought of the religious scholar Mircea Eliade, one of the greatest of the 20th century, whose works Taro read deeply. Research by the art historian Hidenori Sasaki found six of Eliade’s original works in Taro’s hands, and “Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy” in particular bore signs of being read to shreds. In 2013 the museum held an exhibition, “The Shamanism of Taro Okamoto,” confirming this influence academically.
What Eliade illuminated was the “initiation of death and rebirth” common to shamanism worldwide. A youth is confined in a dark cave, dies once symbolically, converses with spirits in the dark, and is reborn as a new person. Taro built this idea into the structure of the Tower of the Sun. Visitors followed a path: underground (death) → ascent (evolution) → the air (future) → the mother’s womb (rebirth) → the ground (new life). Ishii explains: “Visitors experienced a passage through the god-image’s womb, so it functioned as a kind of initiation device.”
In other words, the roughly 64 million Expo visitors underwent, without knowing it, a colossal modern shamanic ritual. Taro designed this deliberately, with one aim: “to restore shamanism to the modern Japanese.” After the Expo, when all pavilions were to be demolished, only the Tower of the Sun was saved — thanks to a signature campaign against its removal, because people unconsciously felt “this must not be destroyed.” Internal viewing began in 2018, and in August 2025 it was designated an Important Cultural Property. And the tower holds one more great mystery to this day: the whereabouts of the “Sun of the Underworld,” the fourth face.
Chapter 6 — The Sun of the Underworld: The Fourth Face Missing for 50 Years, and the Legend of Agartha
The Tower of the Sun is known to have three faces. But in truth it had four, and the fourth was missing for about 50 years. Its name is the “Sun of the Underworld” — a giant golden face, about 3 meters high and 11 meters long, placed at the center of the underground “Prayer” space, surrounded by the gods and masks of the world. Officially it expresses “the source of life, primal energy,” but a step deeper, it is the shamanic “god of the underworld,” the god of the realm of death.
Here it connects to a vast myth humanity has believed since antiquity: “Agartha” and “Shambhala,” the legend that the earth’s interior is hollow and holds an advanced civilization. One man searched for this in earnest in the 20th century: Adolf Hitler. The Nazis are said to have pursued the underground world in two directions. First, Tibet — the 1938 SS expedition is historical fact, and it brought back a Buddha statue called the “Iron Man,” carved from a meteorite. Second, Antarctica — the 1938-39 Antarctic expedition is also historical fact.
After the war, strange rumors spread that Hitler had escaped into the earth’s hollow interior through an opening in Antarctica. These are now treated as baseless conspiracy theories; the earth’s interior is not hollow but a layered structure of mantle and core. Yet there is something intriguing: the sense that an “invisible world” lies “downward” is common to human myth worldwide — the Buddhist hell, the Greek Hades, the Japanese Yomi. The underground is humanity’s fundamental gateway to the invisible world. And Taro knew this. So he designed the “Prayer” space beneath the tower, and placed the Sun of the Underworld at its center.
After the Expo, only the tower was saved; the underground was removed, and only the Sun of the Underworld went missing. A giant face 3 meters high does not simply vanish, yet it did — for about 50 years. Until Taro’s death in 1996, and despite his adopted daughter Toshiko’s repeated searches, it was never found. In 2018 it was faithfully reproduced from records and photographs and installed beneath the tower. What people see today is the reproduction.
Where is the original? On May 3, 2025, an NHK documentary revealed new clues. Three lost design drawings were found, and testimony suggested a strong possibility: “Until 1980 it was stored disassembled at a facility in Hyogo Prefecture, and during that facility’s demolition it was likely buried, along with other debris, at the Fusehata disposal site in Kobe.” In other words, the Sun of the Underworld may lie buried underground. Literally, the sun of the underworld returned to the underworld. Of course this too is not confirmed. That judgment is left to the reader. The god of the underground returns to the underground. That is the true structure of the Tower of the Sun.
Chapter 7 — The Myth of Tomorrow: The Mural Miraculously Found in a Mexican Warehouse
In 1968, alongside designing the Tower of the Sun, Taro Okamoto was creating another colossal work in Mexico City: the “Myth of Tomorrow,” a giant mural 5.5 meters by 30 meters, forming a pair with the Tower of the Sun. Why Mexico? For the Mexico City Olympics, a huge hotel — the largest in Latin America — was under construction, and its owner, Manuel Suárez, commissioned Okamoto for a mural.
Mexico held special meaning for Taro. The Aztec and Maya civilizations had an intense sorcery-culture that offered human sacrifice to the sun god. “The Jomon and the Aztecs saw the world with the same eyes,” Taro felt. The theme was “the atomic bomb.” Why paint a nuclear mural in a hotel lobby? Taro aimed for people around the world to hold dialogue, unknowingly, with the invisible force of the bomb. This too is modern sorcery.
In September 1969 the mural was completed. But then tragedy struck. The owner’s finances collapsed, the hotel was left unfinished, and the operating company went bankrupt. The mural was removed from the lobby and carried off somewhere. One of Taro’s greatest masterpieces vanished into a place beyond his reach in Mexico. A long period of disappearance began; passed from warehouse to warehouse, the painting was slowly damaged. In 1996, Taro Okamoto died at 84, never knowing its fate.
But his adopted daughter, Toshiko Okamoto, never gave up. “The Myth of Tomorrow is his greatest masterpiece. I will find it.” She traveled to Mexico again and again, following every lead. Then, in September 2003, a miracle occurred. In a materials yard on the outskirts of Mexico City, surrounded by dust and scattered materials, a giant painting stood propped up. It was the Myth of Tomorrow. Taro’s greatest masterpiece, missing for 34 years, had stood silently, unnoticed by anyone. Toshiko wept — tears of joy.
The “Myth of Tomorrow Regeneration Project” began. In 2005 the mural was shipped to Japan, and restoration began in Ehime — one of the largest restoration projects in Japanese art history, completed in June 2006. That July, its first showing in Shiodome, Tokyo, drew some two million visitors. Its permanent home was decided: Shibuya. A passageway inside Shibuya Mark City, walked by some 300,000 people a day. On November 17, 2008, it was installed. The “Myth of Tomorrow Preservation Organization” officially acknowledges: “The mysterious power of the Myth of Tomorrow returns to each passerby as energy toward the future.” A painting that gives energy to those who see it. This is not a painting. It is a device that visualizes, amplifies, and radiates energy.
Chapter 8 — The Okinawan Izaiho: The Last Sacred Rite in Modern Japan, Witnessed by Taro
Taro Okamoto crossed to Okinawa twice, in 1959 and 1966. On the second journey he witnessed a rite: the “Izaiho,” a priestess-inauguration ceremony held once every twelve years over five days in the lunar November of the Year of the Horse, on Kudaka Island — where, in Ryukyuan myth, the creator deity Amamikiyo first descended from heaven, the most sacred island in all Okinawa. “Men are of the sea, women are of the gods.” Women were the beings who connected gods and people. Through five days of ritual, women aged 30 to 41 transformed from ordinary women into priestesses (nanchu).
The Izaiho was originally a secret rite never shown to outsiders. Even folklorists like Kunio Yanagita and Shinobu Orikuchi could not reach its core. Yet in 1959 Taro was permitted to meet the previous Kudaka Noro (high priestess). Why? Taro came not to study or consume the rite, but “to enter that world himself.” Perhaps the Noro saw this. There is a photograph Taro took of the previous Noro, known for her severe expression, showing a rare, gentle look before his lens. Her grandchild testified: “This is the face of grandmother accepting Mr. Taro.”
The core of the Izaiho was the “crossing of the seven bridges.” The women who would become priestesses crossed a bridge, pale with tension. The moment they crossed, they transformed from human women into priestesses. This was the shamanic “initiation of death and rebirth” itself. The magic Taro learned in Paris, the Jomon sorcery he studied for twenty years, and Eliade’s death and rebirth — all were happening before his eyes, alive. “The forgotten Japan is here,” Taro became certain.
Intriguingly, after the 1978 Izaiho, the rite ceased. Depopulation left no qualified women. The 1978 Izaiho became the last full-scale shamanic ritual in modern Japan. Taro was nearly the last outside witness of the 1966 rite, two cycles earlier. His photographs and his book “On Okinawan Culture” are now among the most important primary sources on the Izaiho. Had he come a few decades later, he could never have seen it.
One more thing must be noted: the “Gusho Incident.” During the 1966 coverage, Taro entered a sacred grove forbidden to men, photographed the bleached bones at a wind-burial site, and published them in a magazine. Criticism arose that he had “trampled the sacred ground.” It was, one could say, Taro’s grievous error. Yet it is also true that, through his exposure, Kudaka’s culture of “death and rebirth” was transmitted to modern Japan. He trespassed on the sacred; and he conveyed the existence of the sacred to later generations. Both are true at once. This too is Taro Okamoto. And he resolved: “Jomon sorcery still lives in Okinawa. And it is vanishing. I must restore it to modern Japan.” Four years later, he erected the Tower of the Sun at the heart of the Osaka Expo.
Chapter 9 — The True Meaning of “Art Is an Explosion”
“Art is an explosion.” Every Japanese person knows this famous phrase of Taro Okamoto. In 1981, in a commercial for Hitachi Maxell, Okamoto screamed it with a contorted face, and everyone laughed at “the strange old man.” The phrase spread, misunderstood, as “just be outlandish.” But its true meaning is entirely different. It is the deepest of words, condensing his life’s thought into a single line.
Okamoto’s “explosion” is not making a racket, nor destruction. It is the moment when the life-energy sealed within a human being is released, unconditionally, toward the outer world. When the Jomon made pottery, they released the life-energy swirling within them as patterns. That is explosion. Taro thought: modern people have forgotten to explode. Minding the eyes of the world, conforming to corporate logic, they stifle their true voices within the cage called common sense. So modern people only appear to live; inside, they are dead.
Why did Taro place such weight on “explosion”? Because he experienced war. In January 1942, at 31, he was conscripted to the China front. He spent about four and a half years at war, watching many comrades die before his eyes. He saw what happens when human beings forget to release their life-energy. Everyone secretly thought “I hate war,” “I don’t want to die,” yet no one voiced it, and millions died. At the front, Taro resolved: “If I return alive, I will never stifle myself again. I will explode with everything.”
He hated confining art to museums. “Art belongs to everyone,” “Art belongs to the people.” So he appeared on TV and in commercials. Many artists criticized him for “cheapening art,” but Taro paid no heed; he wanted to deliver his message to all Japanese. And in the 1980s, some who laughed at the commercials later realized: “That strange old man was saying something far deeper.” They took up his books and were shocked: “This was a modern philosopher, a prophet.”
One more essential fact: he sold almost none of his works as merchandise. In 1991 he donated 352 major works to his hometown of Kawasaki, and in 1993 another 1,427 — some 1,800 in all, handed to the citizens of Kawasaki. An ordinary artist would sell to dealers. But Taro gave to all citizens. This too was the final practice of his lifelong creed, “Art belongs to the people.” And the largest crystallization of that explosion stands in Ikuta Ryokuchi: the “Mother Tower.”
Chapter 10 — The Mother Tower: Mother Kanoko and the Prayer of the Sacred Family
Push deep into the green hills of Ikuta Ryokuchi, and the view suddenly opens: a colossal white tower, 30 meters tall. One of Taro Okamoto’s final great works, the “Mother Tower.” Taro spent his whole life regarding his mother Kanoko with a special, complex emotion — love, reverence, anguish, and the wish to be freed. Kanoko never embraced him; instead she demanded debates on art from her three-year-old. Taro wrote: “I spent my whole life waiting to be loved by my mother.”
Kanoko died on February 18, 1939, at 49. Taro, then in Paris, learned of it by telegram, could not attend the funeral, and never saw her face in death. He parted from her without a last dialogue. This too was a lifelong thorn. Through his long postwar life he kept longing for his mother. In November 1962, 23 years after her death, he built his first prayer monument for her: the “Kanoko Okamoto Literary Monument: Pride,” in the grounds of Futago Shrine by the Tama River she loved. Okamoto made the monument, Kenzo Tange designed the base, Katsuichiro Kamei wrote the text, and Kawabata brushed the calligraphy — an extraordinarily lavish literary monument.
About a decade later, in 1971, at 60, Taro conceived a larger form of prayer: the “Mother Tower.” A woman’s face at the top, another at the bottom, the whole composed of organic curves. Taro explained: “The strength of a great tree rooted deep in the earth,” “the rich, ample tenderness of a mother,” “eternal life blazing toward the heavens.” And this was not only about Kanoko. For Taro, the mother meant the fundamental maternity of all humanity — the Jomon clay figures, the Earth Mother goddesses, Gaia, Izanami. The Mother Tower was a modern reproduction of all that maternity.
The Tower of the Sun = fatherhood, ascent, evolution. The Myth of Tomorrow = death and rebirth. The Mother Tower = maternity, earth, eternal life. Three works forming one complete cosmology. The tower’s orientation, too, holds deep meaning. The museum’s official information states: “The front of this tower is built to face straight toward the Kanoko Okamoto Literary Monument ‘Pride’ in Futago.” The Mother Tower Taro built in old age faces straight toward “Pride,” the first prayer of his youth, joined by an invisible, spiritual line — a device for continuing his dialogue with his mother forever, even after his death.
The exterior uses “Taro White,” a pearl-colored crushed tile, to realize his image of “do not make it shine, make it glow.” The Mother Tower was erected after Taro’s death, in time for the museum’s opening in October 1999; Taro never saw the finished tower with his own eyes. Kanoko died at 49; Taro lived to 84. The son lived far longer than his mother, and longed for her all his life. The final form of that longing stands in Ikuta Ryokuchi. Between the Mother Tower and “Pride” by the Tama River, Taro continues his eternal dialogue with his mother.
Chapter 11 — Ikuta Ryokuchi and the Okamoto Museum: The Sacred Ground of the Sorcerer Kawasaki Bore
Taro Okamoto entrusted 1,779 major works to his hometown, Kawasaki, and the city built a special museum to house them: the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki, opened on October 30, 1999, within Ikuta Ryokuchi in Tama Ward. The museum has one strange feature: most of its facilities are underground — quite unusual for a museum. The official reason is “to avoid destroying the nature of Ikuta Ryokuchi.” But let us read deeper.
Taro pursued all his life the shamanic worldview of “underground = the invisible world = the place of death and rebirth.” The “Prayer” beneath the Tower of the Sun, the Sun of the Underworld at its center. And the museum housing his works was also built underground. Maternity above (the Mother Tower), works below (the invisible world). This is exactly the same structure as the Tower of the Sun. The result is another sacred ground: the Tower of the Sun at Expo Park in the west, the Mother Tower and underground museum at Ikuta Ryokuchi in the east.
The collection numbers about 1,800 works, among the largest in Japan — paintings, sculptures, designs, photographs, even studio relics. Intriguingly, his parents’ works are also held: Ippei’s cartoon originals, Kanoko’s poetry manuscripts. This is not the museum of Taro alone, but the sacred ground of the “Sacred Family.” Taro, Ippei, and Kanoko — three souls gathered here. In normal times, the entrance hall’s “Thousand Hands,” the permanent gallery’s “Red Room,” the central “Tree Person,” and the “chair corner” where you may actually sit. Photography is allowed, and the paintings have no glass, so you can view them up close.
Here is a crucial notice for those planning a visit. The museum is closed for renovation from March 30, 2026, until March 31, 2029 (planned) — about three years, with no full-scale exhibits. “Then is there any point in going?” There is. Okamoto’s largest work, the outdoor “Mother Tower,” can, in principle, still be seen during the closure.
And in fiscal 2026, a free mini-exhibition, “Chokotto TARO,” is planned in the museum’s free space. For the response from fiscal 2027 on, please check the official information. Visitors during the closure gain a special experience: a quiet sacred ground without crowds. To stand alone before the 30-meter Mother Tower in the silence — this is something only possible during renovation. Then, in April 2029, the renovation is to be completed, and some 1,800 works will be shown again in a new form. Until then, visitors stand before the Mother Tower and feel the invisible force Okamoto keeps radiating from underground.
Chapter 12 — His Works Call to People: Unbelievable Accounts That Actually Happened
Those who stand before Okamoto’s works feel something. What follows are impressive impressions and rumors scattered across the internet and in books. None are verified as the definitive testimony of any individual. Yet with Okamoto’s works, people who say they were “called” or “changed” keep appearing, again and again, even now.
First, the impressions of those who toured inside the Tower of the Sun. On March 19, 2018, internal viewing resumed after 48 years. For the final pre-renovation viewing in October 2016, some 80,000 people applied for 500 places. People who entered were all shocked. “The air changes.” “This is no mere tourist spot.” The music inside is “Hymn to Life,” composed by Toshiro Mayuzumi. And the most common impression: “Inside the Tower of the Sun, tears suddenly came. I don’t know why, but I felt something released within me.” This can be explained if you know Taro designed the interior as a path of shamanic death and rebirth.
Second, sightings of the Sun of the Underworld. “I saw it in a Hyogo warehouse,” “It was buried in an Osaka landfill.” These are unverified rumors. Yet intriguingly, such sightings flow in from multiple regions. Some feel they saw it; later visitors cannot. The god of the underworld shows himself only to the chosen. One could read it that way.
Third, what happens before the Myth of Tomorrow. Some 300,000 people pass it daily in Shibuya, and a mere handful stop before it. “Usually I just walk by. But that day, for some reason, my feet stopped.” “I saw the painting, and that day I made the life decision I’d been agonizing over.” This corresponds strikingly to the organization’s official statement about the “mysterious power” returning as energy toward the future.
Fourth, what happens before the Mother Tower. “The moment I stood before it, I remembered my late mother and wept aloud.” “Having just given birth, I felt my own maternity for the first time.” The Mother Tower was designed as a gateway to humanity’s fundamental maternity, so those carrying something about their mothers may react strongly. Fifth, experiences at the museum. “A voice seemed to come from the painting: ‘You may be just as you are.'” “After leaving, I suddenly couldn’t stop laughing.” “Seeing his works, I realized I wasn’t living my own life.”
All of these can be read as visitors receiving the message Taro radiated all his life. “Don’t stop the explosion within you.” “Don’t conform yourself to the world’s common sense.” Thirty years after his death, his works keep radiating it. The Tower of the Sun at Expo Park, the Myth of Tomorrow at Shibuya, the museum in Minami-Aoyama, the Mother Tower and 1,800 works at Ikuta Ryokuchi — one could read these as a vast network of sorcery Taro placed across Japan. Those who are called will, someday, surely arrive at one of them.
Chapter 13 — Ikuta Ryokuchi: Ten Places to Walk Deeply
Okamoto’s sacred ground, Ikuta Ryokuchi — Kawasaki’s largest urban park, with about 179.3 hectares designated and about 117.4 hectares open to the public. Okamoto sleeps here. But the park’s charm is not only the museum and the Mother Tower. Within it are several places to feel Okamoto more deeply. Here are ten, as a pilgrimage route.
The nearest station is Mukogaoka-yuen (Odakyu Line), about a 17-minute walk. First, walk the [1] approach to the museum, through tall metasequoia and shirakashi. Dappled light, birdsong, the scent of green. Prepare your heart to enter the sacred ground. Then the view opens and [2] the Mother Tower appears. Stand a while before it. The tower’s front faces straight toward “Pride” by the Tama River; feel that direction.
[3] The Taro Okamoto Museum (during renovation, “Chokotto TARO”), underground beneath the tower. The gallery is closed from March 30, 2026, to March 31, 2029 (planned); in fiscal 2026 the free “Chokotto TARO” runs. [4] Oku-no-ike, a spring-fed pond ringed by tall metasequoia — survivors of a plant widespread until about a million years ago. Nearby stands a memorial to the 15 victims of the 1971 “Kawasaki loam slope collapse experiment accident”; the park holds a sad history too.
[5] Masugata-yama Observatory, at 84 meters the park’s highest point, on the site of Masugata Castle from the Kamakura period; from it you can see central Tokyo, the Tama River, Mt. Fuji, and Skytree (9:00-17:00). [6] Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum, with 25 relocated old farmhouses; the old rural Japan Taro saw in the Jomon and Okinawa survives here alive (9:30-16:30/17:00, closed Mondays). [7] Kawasaki Space and Nature Science Museum, with a planetarium (general 400 yen; free for Kawasaki residents; closed Mondays). [8] The Iris Garden (late May to mid-June, about 2,800 plants). [9] The East Entrance Visitor Center (opened 2012, free), where a diorama shows the whole sacred ground. And [10] the Kanoko Okamoto Literary Monument “Pride,” outside the park in the grounds of Futago Shrine in Takatsu Ward (nearest: Futako-shinchi Station on the Tokyu Den-en-toshi Line, about 3 minutes). The Mother Tower faces straight toward this monument. When you have seen both, Okamoto’s deepest structure of prayer completes itself within your heart.
| Place | Location / Access | Highlights | Hours / Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mother Tower | Outside, in front of the museum | 30 m tall; late masterpiece; visible during renovation | Outdoors, anytime |
| Taro Okamoto Museum | 7-1-5 Masugata, Tama Ward, Kawasaki | ~1,800 works. *Gallery closed Mar 30 2026 – Mar 31 2029 (planned) | Normally 9:30-17:00 / closed Mon |
| Chokotto TARO | Museum free space | Mini-exhibition during renovation (planned FY2026) | Free |
| Masugata-yama Observatory | In the park, 84 m | Panorama of the Kanto plain, Mt. Fuji | 9:00-17:00 |
| Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum | In the park | Open-air museum, 25 old farmhouses | 9:30-16:30/17:00 / closed Mon |
| Space and Nature Science Museum | In the park | Planetarium | Gen. 400 yen / closed Mon |
| Kanoko Okamoto Monument “Pride” | Futago Shrine, Takatsu Ward (outside park) | The first prayer monument the tower faces | Outdoors / Futako-shinchi Stn 3 min |
*Hours, closing days, fees, and renovation periods are subject to change; please confirm on each official site before visiting.
The Pilgrimage: A One-Day Route Tracing Taro
Seeing everything takes a full day. Taro Okamoto is not something to consume in a hurry. Feel him slowly, deeply.
- 1
Morning｜Mukogaoka-yuen Stn (south exit) → metasequoia approach
Walk through the dappled forest and prepare your heart.
- 2
Mother Tower → Taro Okamoto Museum (Chokotto TARO during renovation)
Stand beneath the 30 m tower, then descend to the underground sacred ground.
- 3
Lunch｜Cafeteria TARO or a nearby restaurant
A breath within the greenery.
- 4
Afternoon｜Oku-no-ike → Masugata Observatory → Folk House Museum → Science Museum
Million-year-old plants, the Kanto panorama, the forgotten Japan.
- 5
(Seasonal) Iris Garden → Evening｜East Visitor Center
Irises bloom late May to mid-June. Parking is near.
- 6
Another day｜Kanoko Okamoto Monument “Pride” (Futako-shinchi Stn)
When you have seen both the tower and “Pride,” the structure of prayer completes.
Epilogue — Taro Is Calling You: Jomon Sorcery, Revived in the Present
By now you understand: Taro Okamoto was no mere artist. He was the last sorcerer, descended to restore a forgotten magic to 20th-century Japan. He died on January 7, 1996, at 84. Having said in life “death is a festival” and hated funerals, his wishes were honored and no funeral was held. But his works live on. The Tower of the Sun, the Myth of Tomorrow, the Mother Tower — all still radiate his soul.
In the prologue we wrote: “There are doors that open only for the called.” Why are people called by Taro Okamoto? Modern Japanese appear to live, yet do not. One day they suddenly wonder, “Am I really alive?” But the answer is not in the smartphone, not in the company. At such a time, a single word drops into the mind: “Taro Okamoto.” And from that day, strange things begin. A TV feature. His books stacked in a shop. “This is no coincidence.” The moment you realize that, you are being called.
You take up his books — “Today’s Art,” “Have Poison Within Yourself” — and are shocked: “What I had always been searching for is written here.” Taro is said to call out: “You may be just as you are.” “Don’t conform yourself to the world’s common sense.” “Explode.” “Live your life as art.” Those words explode within you. The true voice you had stifled awakens. “This is how I truly wanted to live.”
And one day you set foot in Ikuta Ryokuchi. You walk through the green, the view opens, and there stands the colossal white tower, 30 meters tall. The Mother Tower. You stand before it and look up. And you hear — not a voice, yet it surely resounds in your mind: “You have come well. Do not stop the explosion within you.” In that moment you connect with Taro Okamoto. And you know: he has not died. He lives within the Mother Tower, within the 1,800 works.
Taro conveyed all his life: “Art belongs to everyone.” Salaryman, homemaker, student, child — every human being should release the life-energy within, and explode into life every day. That is everything he wished to convey. If you have read this far, it is no coincidence. You are being called now. And before the Mother Tower in Ikuta Ryokuchi, Taro Okamoto is waiting for you. “So you’ve come.” Go, to hear those words.
This is the Mother Tower, at the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Ikuta Ryokuchi, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture. Namu, Taro Okamoto. Do not forget the explosion; live. Gassho.
*This site uses an affiliate program (ValueCommerce) to introduce products and services. Listed fees, hours, closing days, access, and renovation periods are subject to change; please confirm on each official site before booking or visiting. Images are for illustration.
*Expressions such as “sorcery,” “invisible force,” “being called,” and the accounts in this article, as well as the passages on the Sun of the Underworld, Agartha, and Shambhala, include interpretations of Okamoto’s thought, folklore, rumor, and unverified information. These are not academically established facts but one reading. Please distinguish the factual parts — work titles, dates, facility information — from the interpretive and legendary parts.
Taro Okamoto Museum Navigator
Mukogaoka-Yuen Sta.
Nearest station (Odakyu Line). About 17 min on foot to the museum, or take a bus to “Ikuta Ryokuchi-iriguchi” then ~8 min walk. The bus is easier.
Ikuta Ryokuchi East Gate
Toilets, lockers, and Wi-Fi at the visitor center. The park has some slopes, so wear comfortable shoes.
Tower of Mother
A 30 m outdoor symbol tower. Viewable even while exhibitions are closed. Walk around it — its face changes with the angle.
Museum (exhibitions closed)
Exhibition rooms closed from Mar 30, 2026 to end of Mar 2029 (planned). Check the official site for shop and cafe hours.
Nearby Facilities
The Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum and the Science Museum (planetarium) are within walking distance. Plenty for half a day.
Meal
Rest at the soba restaurant inside the Folk House Museum, or the cafe in the Science Museum. Wind down with a view of the greenery.
Two Faces of This Town
A cutting-edge museum, and a village of old farmhouses dating back to the Edo era.
Right beside the metropolis, the future and the past live side by side.
From the Station to the Park: A Detour Worth Taking
Mukōgaoka-Yūen and Noborito form a town with a surprisingly rich food scene, just twenty-odd minutes from central Tokyo.
Here are the standout spots worth stopping at on the way to Ikuta Ryokuchi and the Fujiko·F·Fujio Museum.
Stay, and Go One Day Deeper.
Both Ikuta Ryokuchi and Fujiko’s world are too good to rush through in a single day.
A single Odakyū line takes you to the city center. Spend the night at a fine hotel in Shibuya or Shinjuku, then return to this town the next morning—that kind of trip works beautifully here.
✦ Find fine hotels in Shinjuku
* Hotel booking links contain advertising (affiliate programs). The gourmet links are not advertisements.
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