Yanaka Five-Storied Pagoda Double-Suicide Arson Case - The Arson Case

The Arson Case

The pagoda burned to the ground on July 6, 1957. Next to the middle pillar of the pagoda, among the ruins, were found the two charred bodies of a man and a woman. The bodies were too badly burned for a positive identification to be possible, but their identities were established to a near certainty thanks to a thimble found among the ruins.

A seamstress in her twenties working in a sewing shop in Tokyo and her middle-aged (and married) lover had gone missing. Witnesses testified that the two had wanted to burn themselves to atone for their adulterous relationship, and therefore the two bodies were likely to be theirs. The destruction of the cultural asset was nonetheless universally and severely criticized. It was decided that the pagoda would not be rebuilt, and that only the five foundation stones would be preserved.

In 2007, researchers at the Tokyo University of the Arts claimed to have found blueprints of the pagoda drawn in 1970, and a movement to rebuild it was born. The cost was estimated to be almost a billion yen, but nonetheless even the University's President Hirayama Kunio approved of the project.