At five minutes walking distance from Akihabara, Tokyo’s geekest neighborhood, you can find the Shintoist shrine Kanda Myōjin (Google Maps). At first glance it might appear that it’s just a normal temple but if we go inside…

In the area where omamori お守り (Protectors) are sold I found this special omamori for the workers of the IT industry. One of its powers is to protect your computer against virus attacks. Omamoris that are usually sold in Shintoist temples are meant to protect you against illness, to avoid traffic accidents or bring good luck in your exams. The IT omamori is special and can only be found in Kanda Myōjin.



Special IT Omamori of Kanda Myōjin. It’s design is inspired by chipsets.

In the part of the shrine where the ema (絵馬) are hanged you can also see the influence of the neighbors of Akihabara. In wooden ema you normally write a wish and hang it in the temple. Here I found that almost all ema had also a drawing of an anime, manga or videogame character next to the wish. Some of the drawings were really exceptional!

I talked more about Kanda Myojin in a TV program of NHK World that you can watch here (three minute video).