WASHIMIYA, Japan -- For many years, Washinomiya Shrine has been a quiet place of worship, attracting just a trickle of sightseers to this sleepy town outside Tokyo. Then last summer, priests started noticing a new kind of visitor.

Young men, some clad in miniskirts, stockings and pastel-colored wigs, were lining up for photos at the shrine's vermilion gate. Over the big New Year's holiday in January, nearly 300,000 such visitors -- almost 10 times the town's population -- showed up, scores of them clad in outfits resembling...