The Beginning

As The 52 Fujis neared to a conclusion, I discovered an extra one or two stations that I’d missed. One of those stations was Musashi-Fujisawa.

(I get a sense you may already know where this is going.)

I knew from riding the Nanbu line to and from work for a few years back in the day that were quite a few Musashi stations in the Greater Tokyo area. The question was – how many? Which led to a larger question – should I try and do these next?

The answer to the latter, at least on March 12th, 2020, was a “yeah, nah, probably not.”

I didn’t let go of the notion though, as I knew once I’d finished the Fujis, I’d probably want to start doing something else… and this was a fun list.

The good news – for me – was that this isn’t anywhere near as bonkers as the Fujis. Someone had already put together a pretty slinky looking list and done quite a good job of visiting the more enticing stations.

So with this in hand, and a bit more sniffing around the web, I decided that the answer to the former question was around 29.

I say ‘around’ because one of the ones I added to the list is a placard in a car park where a station used to be.

I also say ‘around’ because a handful of the Musashi stations are prefixed ‘Bushu’ which is the same thing, more or less, but I don’t know how much of a stickler some people are for that sort of thing.

The final reason I say ‘around’ is because two of the stations aren’t anywhere near Tokyo at all and have Musashi in their name for an entirely unrelated reason that connects them to one another, to the samurai period, to general awesomeness and at least one of the 52 Fujis in a cool, sword swinging, undefeated in battle, kind of a way.

Oh and then I figured I’d add in Sky Tree to make it a nice round 30. This wasn’t just a random decision, but you’ll have to read this whole thing to find out why it snuck onto the list.

What exactly is this Musashi malarkey then?

Since 1871, Japan’s been separated into 47 prefectures. Prior to that there were 66 domains or provinces. The new prefectures are, in many cases, roughly equivalent to the former provinces in terms of geographical location & size. Some are a little different – modern Kanagawa doesn’t quite square up with historical Sagami for example, and historical Musashi?

That was kind of smushed all over modern Tokyo, Kanagawa & Saitama.

So there you go, the simple straightforward answer is that Musashi is the name for a former province, mostly centred on the Kanto plain. The province was also known as ‘Bushu’ and so I included those stations too.

So what exactly does Musashi mean then? The short answer is – nothing.

I’m not going to even try and explain all the ins and outs of it, but if you fancy a longish deep dive with some colourful language, this excellent post at Japan This! is all you could ever need.

‘Bushu’, on the other hand, pretty much translates into ‘warrior province’ … which is where I got the idea for the name of this latest daft list.

This nickname also gives a pretty cool link to the two stations mentioned above that have nothing to do whatsoever with the province, but are, instead, connected to the legendary swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi.

One of these is a station close to one of his purported birthplaces, and the other is in Kumamoto, near one of his final resting places.

As you can see from this smorgasbord of beginnings and endings, ‘legendary’ was not used in jest above. There’s a lot about his life that’s unknown, unclear or just mightily mixed up with myth; for example, the time he showed up to a sword fight 2 hours late and fought with an oar because he forgot his sword. Or the story that he never bathed in case his enemies got the jump on him while he was in the buff in the bath.

On the other hand, there are some confirmed facts – he did most definitely help design Akashi castle, if you remember Fujie, and, although it wasn’t entirely his own idea, he did most definitely perfect a 2 sword fighting style that was pretty hard to beat. He did write (most of) The Book of Five Rings, a philosophical treatise about swordfighting in particular & martial arts in general, that remains very influential to this day.

The Sky Tree headscratcher

I’m sure you’ve heard of the big pointy tower in Tokyo. Perhaps you wonder whether the station that serves the second tallest structure in the world used to be a Musashi station? A good guess but sorry, no: while it did at one point used to be called Asakusa it was never a Musashi station, I’m afraid.

The real reason is wordplay – Sky Tree’s height is a Japanese pun. It’s 634 metres tall, which can be written as “mu-sa-shi”. If you think this is either something I made up or just a weird coincidence, don’t take my word for it –

In deciding the height, we wanted the tower, the world’s tallest and symbol of the area, to have a height that is easy to be remembered. The height of 634 meters (to be read as MU-SA-SHI) was decided upon, as Musashi is the name of an old province and a familiar name to the Japanese people. We thought “634 = MUSASHI” would be easily remembered by the public from the phonic association of the figure and the word.

The Highest Point of Tokyo Sky Tree to Reach 634 Meters

(And as if that wasn’t enough, Tobu even named their new trains the 634 series.)

Musashino Line

I suppose there may be an argument to be made for including all the stations on the Musashino line, seeing as how it is, nominatively speaking, a direct reference to the Musashi Plain. It’s not an argument that convinces me, however, mainly because more trains from the plains can’t be put on my list of pain again.

A List of Musashi Stations

Here are the posts about each station, ordered chronologically by when they were visited. The table following that gives a little more information on each station.

#	NAME	NAME (Japanese)	TRAINLINE(s)
1	Bushu-Araki	武州荒木	Chichibu Railway
2	Bushu-Hino	武州日野	Chichibu Railway
3	Bushu-Nakagawa	武州中川	Chichibu Railway
4	Bushu-Karasawa	武州唐沢	Tobu-Ogose
5	Bushu-Nagase	武州長瀬	Tobu-Ogose
6	Miyamoto-Musashi	宮本武蔵	Chizu Express
7	Musashi- Yokote	武蔵横手	Seibu Chichibu
8	Musashi-Fujisawa	武蔵藤沢	Seibu Ikebukuro
9	Musashi-Hikida	武蔵引田	JR Itsukaichi
10	Musashi-Itsukaichi	武蔵五日市	JR Itsukaichi
11	Musashi-Masuko	武蔵増戸	JR Itsukaichi
12	Musashi-Koganei	武蔵小金井	Chuo
13	Musashi-Kosugi	武蔵小杉	JR Nambu / Yokosuka / Shonan-Shinjkuku / Sotetsu / Tokyu Toyoko
14	Musashi-Mizonokuchi	武蔵溝ノ口	JR Nambu
15	Musashi-Nakahara	武蔵中原	JR Nambu
16	Musashi-Shinjo	武蔵新城	JR Nambu
17	Musashi-Koyama	武蔵小山	Tokyu Tamagawa
18	Musashi-Nitta	武蔵新田	Tokyu Tamagawa
19	Musashi-Ranzan	武蔵嵐山	Tobu-Tojo
20	Musashi-Sakai	武蔵境	JR Chuo / Seibu Tamagawa
21	Musashi-Seki	武蔵関	Seibu Shinjuku
22	Musashi-Shiraishi	武蔵白石	JR Tsurumi
23	Musashi-Sunagawa	武蔵砂川	Seibu Haijima
24	Musashi-Takahagi	武蔵高萩	JR Kawagoe
25	Musashi-Urawa	武蔵浦和	JR Saikyo / Musashino
26	Musashinodai	武蔵野台	Keio
27	Musashizuka		Hohi Main
28	Musashi-Yamato	武蔵大和	Seibu Tamako
29	Musashi-Iwai (closed in 1971)	武蔵岩井	JR Itsukaichi
30	Sky Tree	とうきょうスカイツリー	Tobu Skytree

CityHillsAndSea

The Railways Of The Warrior