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Akagi-jinja Shrine

It is said that in 1300, Akagi-jinja Shrine in Shinjuku performed bunrei (ceremonial division of a shrine's tutelary kami deity, in order to share it with another shrine) to receive part of the kami from Akagi-jinja Shrine in Miyosawa, Miyagi Village, Seta County, Kozuke Province (current Gunma Prefecture). First, the bunrei (the resulting divided sprit) was transferred to Tajima, Ushigome-Waseda Village (current Waseda Tsurumaki Town), then to Ushigome in 1460 by Ota Dokan, a warlord famous for building the Edo Castle (the current Imperial Palace), and finally to the current location by the Ushigome clan in 1555. The Ushigome clan are the descendants of the Ogo clan, who had power on the south side of Mount Akagi in Kozuke Province. In 1683, the Tokugawa government recognized this shrine as one of Ushigome's guardian gods, along with Hie-jinja Shrine and Kanda-jinja Shrine. In 1873, Akagi-jinja Shrine was promoted to gosha (district shrine).

The shrine enshrines Iwatsutsunoo no Mikoto and Akagihime no Mikoto. In the back of the shrine grounds, there used to be a rental house called "Seifu-tei." It was a place where Tsubouchi Shoyo, one of the most prominent modern Japanese authors who was also a professor at Waseda University, held meetings of "Ekifu-kai," the predecessor of Bungei Kyokai (literary society).