縁結び

Bonds & Matchmaking

Enmusubi prayers for relationships in Tokyo and Kyoto: ordinary visits, formal prayer options, ema, and Jishu Jinja's current closure.

These are places where this concern is part of the site’s own tradition. Practices differ between shrines and temples, and some shrines have their own sequence. Read the place’s own advice below and our guide to shrine and temple worship before visiting.

A relationship, not only a romance

Enmusubi is a prayer for good connections. Tokyo Daijingu explicitly includes relationships at work and school alongside romantic partnership and marriage. Choose the connection you want to pray about; you do not need to arrive as a couple.

The places below approach that wish through different traditions. Kanda Myojin names Onamuchi, also known as Okuninushi, as its kami of good relationships and marital harmony. Tokyo Daijingu describes its own association with the kami of creation and binding. These are the shrines' accounts of their beliefs, not promises of a particular outcome.

Tokyo: a visit or a formal prayer

At Tokyo Daijingu, ordinary visits are possible 6:00–21:00. If you want a priest-led prayer inside the hall, its published reception is 9:00–16:30, with applications at the shrine and a cash offering from ¥5,000 for an ordinary prayer request. The shrine advises that ceremonies can change the reception schedule; check its current notices before travelling.

A formal service is an option. The shrine's own guidance also describes praying at the offering box. One does not make the other an inadequate visit.

At Kanda Myojin, you can write a wish on an ema, a wooden votive plaque. Its FAQ says there is no rigid wording rule. Because the plaque is displayed where others can read it, avoid private details you do not want to share. Use the Kanda entry for its altar sequence and visiting information.

Kyoto: check whether the place is open

Jishu Jinja is closed for restoration, with no reopening date stated in the official notice checked for this guide. Its love-divination stones cannot currently be visited. Admission to neighbouring Kiyomizu-dera does not give access to the closed shrine.

Jishu's special prayer-by-post service does not accept overseas applications. Do not treat it as an international substitute for a visit. The other entries below offer places to consider, with their own access information and worship customs.

Sources

This page draws on the following sources, most of them in Japanese. Details checked: 2026-09-05.

Where to go

Heian Jingu Shrine

平安神宮 · Kyoto, Kyoto

A 5:8-scale reconstruction of Kyoto's ancient State Hall, where the shrine courtyard is free and the four landscape gardens are a separate visit.

Hie Shrine

日枝神社 · Tokyo, Tokyo

A hilltop shrine in Nagatacho where the stairs, the escalator and the paired sacred monkeys are all part of the visit.

Kamigamo Shrine

賀茂別雷神社（上賀茂神社） · Kyoto, Kyoto

Kyoto's upper Kamo shrine, where two sand cones mark the mountain's presence and a paid inner-court visit changes what you can actually see.

Meiji Jingu

明治神宮 · Shibuya, Tokyo

A forest of a hundred thousand donated trees, planted from scratch in 1920 and designed to outlive everyone who planted it — with a shrine in the middle.

Nezu Shrine

根津神社 · Tokyo, Tokyo

A richly carved Edo-period shrine where a red-torii path, a separate Inari shrine and a working counter each ask you to slow down.

Nonomiya Shrine

野宮神社 · Kyoto, Kyoto

A black-wood torii at the start of Sagano, where the shrine's own route ends at a turtle stone after separate prayers to each local deity.

Shimogamo Shrine

賀茂御祖神社（下鴨神社） · Kyoto, Kyoto

A shrine reached through a twelve-hectare forest, where the most specific way to pray for a bond involves walking the same small shrine three times.

Shirayama Hime Jinja

白山比咩神社 · Hakusan, Ishikawa

Head shrine of some three thousand Hakusan shrines, at the foot of a sacred mountain — and one of the few places that still offers misogi, cold-water ablution, as a standing rite.

Takachiho Jinja

高千穂神社 · Takachiho, Miyazaki

The head shrine of Takachiho's eighty-eight shrines, where four kagura dances are performed for visitors at eight o'clock on most nights.

Tokyo Daijingu

東京大神宮 · Chiyoda, Tokyo

Tokyo's stand-in for Ise, and the shrine that invented the modern Shinto wedding — now the busiest place in the city to ask for a partner.

Tsuyu no Tenjinsha (Ohatsu Tenjin)

露天神社(お初天神) · Kita, Osaka, Osaka

A small Osaka shrine hemmed in by izakaya, known for love — because two people really did die here in 1703, and Japan's greatest playwright wrote it down.

Yasaka Shrine

八坂神社 · Kyoto, Kyoto

Gion's open-all-night shrine, where the gate, the prayer office and the seal desk each keep a different clock.

Yushima Tenmangu

湯島天満宮 · Bunkyo, Tokyo

Tokyo's exam shrine. In February the ema racks are so dense with entrance-exam prayers that you cannot see the wood.

Kiyomizu-dera

partial

清水寺 · Higashiyama, Kyoto

The stage is uncovered again, the love stones inside have been shut since 2022, and the queue at the waterfall is arguing about something the temple has answered in two different places.

Zōjō-ji Temple

partial

増上寺 · Tokyo, Tokyo

A Jōdo temple where the route from the old gate to the Amida hall, the Tokugawa graves and the seal counter are three different visits.

Jishu Jinja

closed

地主神社 · Higashiyama, Kyoto, Kyoto

Kyoto's famous love-stone shrine inside Kiyomizu-dera — closed since 2022, with no reopening date, and still listed as open almost everywhere in English.