Atsuhime: From Kagoshima to Edo Castle

Episode 1 opens in Satsuma in 1835, twenty years before the Black Ships, when a long-awaited daughter is born into the Imaizumi Shimazu family, a cadet branch of the Shimazu clan. Her parents name her Katsu, wishing the child's happiness. She will become Atsuhime. The drama's travel sketch points to the family's residence site in Ibusuki, where a stone basin known to have been used by Atsuhime still remains. The site is reached from JR Satsuma-Imaizumi Station.

場所の精度: The sketch places her birth house near Kagoshima Castle; the pin marks Imaizumi in Ibusuki, where the family's residence site lies.

訪問のヒント: Take the train to JR Satsuma-Imaizumi Station, as the drama's travel sketch advises.

Episode 2 is titled "Vow at Sakurajima". The volcano across Kagoshima Bay is the backdrop of Atsuhime's girlhood, and the drama's travel sketch says: "The volcano that Atsuhime adored is the homeland for people of Kagoshima across time." The composer of the score also watched Sakurajima while writing it. Sakurajima is the most active volcano in Japan, only 4 km across the bay from Kagoshima city. Today you can cross by the Sakurajima Ferry.

訪問のヒント: The Sakurajima Ferry crosses from Kagoshima city.

In 1853 Okatsu becomes the adopted daughter of Shimazu Nariakira, who says he wants her because she reminds him of his mother. In episode 8 she moves into Tsurumaru Castle and has a hard time fitting into its restrictive customs, belittled by the women serving her as a girl from a branch family. The drama's sketch calls it "Crane Castle". Only the foundations and a gate remain: the site now holds a prefectural library and museums, and the Otemon main gate was reconstructed in 2020.

訪問のヒント: The castle site is home to Kagoshima's prefectural museum, library and city art museum.

Episode 1 dates its story to twenty years before the Black Ships, and the drama's travel sketch says their arrival changed Atsuhime's fate. In 1853 four black ships under Commodore Matthew C. Perry appeared in Uraga Bay. Perry landed at Kurihama on 14 July 1853 for his first negotiations on opening Japan. A large monument was raised there in 1901, and a small museum opened in 1987. The drama's sketch says the Black Ships radically changed Atsuhime's fate.

場所の精度: Kurihama is the landing area; the drama's sketch names Uraga Bay, and no single spot is pinned.

訪問のヒント: Kurihama has a commemorative monument and a small museum.

On 21 August 1853 Atsuhime travelled by land from Kagoshima to Edo, never to return. On 18 November 1856 she married Tokugawa Iesada, the shōgun, and the drama's second half follows shogunate politics from the Ōoku. In episode 36, doubted even by shōgun Iemochi, she burns the personal items she brought from Satsuma; he apologizes. Edo Castle was the shōgun's residence; its main palace burned in 1863. Today the site is part of the Tokyo Imperial Palace.

訪問のヒント: Some moats, walls and ramparts survive within the Tokyo Imperial Palace grounds.