How to Walk Osamu Dazai's Mitaka: 6 Free Stops in the Town That Still Finds New Writers

Mitaka is a city on the western side of Tokyo, about 20 minutes from Shinjuku on the JR Chuo Line. Most visitors come for the Ghibli Museum. Walk out of the station's south exit, and you are in the streets where Osamu Dazai spent much of his writing life. 

Six stops, all free, about two hours on foot.

Start with the newest. In March 2026, the city rebuilt part of a railway footbridge Dazai used to walk, on the ground where it stood. Scan the QR code by the steps and the bridge returns to your phone screen. Footprints are painted on the spot where he leaned against the railing for his best-known photograph.

What Mitaka does with his name

Every December, well over a thousand manuscripts arrive in Mitaka from people hoping to be published.

Anyone is free to send one. The Dazai Osamu Prize is an open competition for unpublished fiction, with no agent and no track record needed. The publisher Chikuma Shobo started it in 1964, Mitaka has co-run it since 1998, and the winner takes a million yen and publication. Chikuma prints the whole shortlist every year, with the judges’ comments beside each story.

Kikuko Tsumura won the 21st prize and later the Akutagawa Prize, Japan's main award for new fiction. Polly Barton translated her as There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job. Natsuko Imamura won the 26th and reached English readers as The Woman in the Purple Skirt. Tsumura reads for the Dazai panel now, judging the kind of submission she once sent in.

Who was Osamu Dazai?

Japanese schools have taught Run, Melos! since 1956, so most readers in Japan meet Dazai at thirteen, in a story about two friends and a promise.

He was born in 1909 in Kanagi, a small town in Aomori at the northern tip of the main island. His name was Shuji Tsushima. He came to Mitaka in September 1939, aged 30, and stayed for the rest of his life apart from a wartime evacuation. He wrote Run, Melos! here, and The Setting Sun, a novel about an aristocratic family after the war whose title Japanese readers turned into the name for that whole class. He died in 1948, at 38.

Donald Keene translated both novels for New Directions in New York within a decade, and translators keep returning to him. New English versions appeared in 2018, 2023, 2024, and 2025, with another due from Penguin Classics in 2027.

Bungo Stray Dogs, a manga and anime running since 2012, gives its characters the names of real writers and names their powers after those writers' books. The Dazai character's power is called No Longer Human.

Mitaka lists 19 Dazai sites around the city, ten of them with plaques. Six suit a first visit.

The six stops, in walking order

Open the walking route in Google Maps, and it will hold all six stops in order, with the times between them.

1. The memorial space at the old bridge

Kamirenjaku 2-21. About 400 meters west of the station. Free, outdoors, open every day.

The footbridge went up in 1929, when the railway opened a new train yard and cut the neighborhood in two. People climbed it for the trains below and, on a clear day, Mount Fuji. Dazai walked up between writing sessions, and his best-known photograph was taken there, leaning on the railing in a heavy winter cape.

The bridge stood for 94 years. Mitaka held a final public crossing in December 2023, and more than 4,000 people applied for a place. JR East then handed the city part of the staircase and one girder, railing included. Those pieces stand on the old south stairway now, in a space smaller than a tennis court, with old rails stamped with the maker and year and a crape myrtle, the same species that stood at his gate.

The QR code is at the foot of the steps. This is the only stop with the augmented reality view, so allow a few minutes.

2. Dazai Osamu Exhibition Room: This Small House in Mitaka

Mitaka City Gallery of Art, fifth floor of the Coral shopping building, 3-35-1 Shimorenjaku. Free. Closed Mondays.

The city rebuilt part of his rented house here in December 2020. There is a permanent display, a rotating one, and a room where you sit at a copy of his desk; photographs welcome. The building stands at the south exit, so it is the easiest place to begin. If you came for the books, give this room your time.

3. Dazai Osamu Literary Salon

3-16-14 Shimorenjaku, ground floor of the Grand Jardin Mitaka building. Free. Closed Mondays.

A sake shop called Isemoto stood here, and Dazai wrote it into his story December Eighth. The city opened the salon in 2008 and turned the room into a book cafe in 2022. Take anything off the shelves, in Japanese, English, German, French, or Spanish, and read as long as you like. Order the Dazai coffee. Volunteers work here daily and walk visitors to nearby sites at weekends, and the counter sells a printed map of the Dazai sites.

4. Zenrin-ji

4-18-20 Shimorenjaku

Dazai admired Mori Ogai, an army doctor who became one of the founding figures of modern Japanese fiction. He wrote about Ogai’s grave in a story called Hanafubuki, and his own grave was later placed near it. Readers come every 19 June, his birthday, for a gathering called Ōtōki, which the writer Kan’ichi Kon named after Dazai’s late story Ōtō, or Cherries. They have kept the date for more than seventy years. Zenrin-ji is a working temple, and families visit these graves. Voices stay low, and the posted signs show where photographs are welcome.

5. Seishintei

2-10-48 Shimorenjaku

A city-run hall in traditional style, used for tea ceremony and small events. The garden is the reason to stop. The crape myrtle from the gate of Dazai's house was replanted here after the house came down, and he put the same tree in his story Osan. It flowers in late summer.

6. Inokashira Park

1-18-31 Gotenyama, Musashino. The park straddles the boundary between Mitaka and neighboring Musashino.

Walk here on the Kaze no Sanpomichi, the footpath beside the Tamagawa Josui. The Josui is a channel dug in the 1650s to carry drinking water into Edo, and the path beside it is the best stretch of the route. Fifteen minutes brings you to the park and the Ghibli Museum gate. Dazai called this park one of the sights of Tokyo in his essay Tokyo Eight Views. Yuzo Yamamoto's house museum stands on the same path if you want one more writer.

The house

Only the lane where his house stood survives, a few minutes from Seishintei, and the lane is private. Mitaka asks visitors to read the plaque from the street.

Plan your afternoon

Getting there. JR Chuo Line to Mitaka Station, about 20 minutes from Shinjuku. Start at the south exit.

Cost. Free, apart from coffee.

The route. Open this walking route before you set off. Japanese addresses give a district and block numbers rather than a street name, so following a pin beats reading a street sign.

Language. Panels on site are in Japanese, so keep this page open as you walk. Use the camera translation feature on the Google Translate app for live translation support.

With the Ghibli Museum. Entry is by advance reservation, released monthly. Book the museum first and fit the walk around your slot. Two to three hours beforehand covers the route and leaves you at the museum gate.

Season. The crape myrtles flower from midsummer into early autumn. 19 June brings the Ōtōki gathering at Zenrin-ji.

Where to start reading

Run, Melos! is the short one. The Setting Sun is the one that made his name. No Longer Human is the title most readers know abroad.

Common questions

Q: Who was Osamu Dazai?

A: A Japanese novelist, born in Aomori in 1909. He lived in Mitaka from 1939 and wrote most of his best-known work there. The city still co-runs a writing prize in his name.

Q: What should I read by Osamu Dazai?

A: Run, Melos!, a short story about friendship taught in Japanese schools since 1956. The Setting Sun made his name. No Longer Human is his best-known title abroad.

Q: Is the Osamu Dazai walk in Mitaka free?

A: Yes. All six stops are free. Your only cost is train fare and anything you order at the salon.

Q: How long does the walk take?

A: About two hours on foot, or three if you stay to read at the Literary Salon.

Q: Does this walk pair with the Ghibli Museum on the same day?

A: Yes. Book your museum slot first, then walk the route in the two to three hours before entry. Stop 6 sits in the park where the museum stands.

Q: Where did Osamu Dazai live?

A: In Shimorenjaku, Mitaka, on the western side of Tokyo. He moved there in September 1939 and stayed for the rest of his life apart from a wartime evacuation. Only the lane survives.

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The official pages linked here are in Japanese, apart from the Ghibli ticket page.