Where you go when it is not one thing
Kaiun is the broadest category on the site, and it is the honest place to put a request that does not decompose neatly. Not a specific illness, not a specific exam — a general sense that things have been going badly and you would like them to start going better. The characters mean something like "opening fortune," and the image is of a way opening up rather than a prize arriving.
Most shrines carry this association in addition to whatever they are known for, which is why the list here overlaps heavily with the other categories. That is not padding; it reflects how the shrines describe themselves.
Two things worth knowing before you use this category
It is where the invented practices cluster. Because the request is vague and the payoff imaginable, general good-fortune shrines attract more folk ritual and more internet-invented gimmickry than any specific category. Izumo Taisha has had to state on its own site that touching its bronze torii for money luck is not an old practice there, and that throwing coins to lodge in its great straw rope is disrespectful and not auspicious. Treat unfamiliar rituals with the same caution you would apply anywhere: if the shrine does not document it, it is not the shrine's.
The offering does not need to be large or clever. Both Jinja Honcho and Izumo Taisha explicitly disclaim the five-yen coin pun. Izumo calls the whole family of coin puns baseless wordplay invented to make a tour more entertaining, and says the sincerity of a prayer is not affected by the denomination of a coin.
If you are going to do this properly
Choose one thing to say. The point of the specific categories is that a request with an edge on it is easier to hold in mind at the hall than a general hope — and holding it is the entire content of the act.
