Japanese High School Student Aims to Share Kaiten History Through Inbound Tours in Shunan, Yamaguchi Prefecture

By Yuki Ono / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

17:55 JST, February 21, 2026

YAMAGUCHI — A high school student has created a tour for inbound tourists in Shunan, Yamaguchi Prefecture, hoping to ensure that the tragic story of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s “Kaiten” human torpedoes endures.

The interactive tour will be offered in late February on a remote island where Kaiten trained in the city.

Kaiten were crewed suicide weapons. Packed with explosives, they were rammed into enemy vessels during the closing months of World War II.

The idea of the tour was conceived by Futaba Shiigi, an 18-year-old local high school senior. “We are the last generation that can hear firsthand accounts from people who experienced the war,” she said. “With the world currently in a state of instability, I want to share this history to help make sure that tragedies like this never happen again.”

Essentially a manned torpedo, Kaiten measured 14.75 meters in length and one meter in diameter and had 1.55 tons of explosives packed into their nose. The weapon was carried on the deck of a submarine and, once launched, manually piloted toward its target.

The operation was launched in November 1944, resulting in 145 deaths on Japan’s side, including both pilots and crewmen still in training. While Ozushima Island served as the primary training ground, other bases were established in Hikari and Hirao in Yamaguchi Prefecture, as well as Hiji in Oita Prefecture.

In mid-January, Shiigi and Takashi Sadahiro, 63, head of the regional revitalization group etwas, discussed how to frame the tour’s presentation at the Kaiten Memorial Museum on Ozushima.

Accompanied by museum staffer Tatsuya Iwasaki, 64, they examined the last letters and photographs of fallen pilots and discussed how best to convey the weight of these historical artifacts to international visitors.

Focusing on a pilot’s handwritten message that directly translates to “I will charge with a smile,” Shiigi and Sadahiro worried that international visitors might misinterpret the message as the pilot being happy to die.

The two learned that Iwasaki usually explains the message by imagining how the pilot might have felt, suggesting that the writer may have been trying not to make the people left behind worry. Hearing that, Shiigi and Sadahiro immediately got to work brainstorming a draft plan.

Shiigi noted that a poor choice of vocabulary during the English translation process could alter the intended nuance. She wanted to consult experts to ensure accuracy.

Shiigi came up with the idea for the inbound tour in the autumn of 2023, when she was attending a school in Hiroshima. She noticed that although vast numbers of international tourists visited the Atomic Bomb Dome, few made the short trip to Shunan, just two stops away by Shinkansen.

“This is a place where people can encounter a history of the war that isn’t well known abroad,” she thought.

Utilizing her English skills, Shiigi conducted a survey of about 90 foreign tourists who were visiting the Atomic Bomb Dome. Among them, 20% said they planned to visit Nagasaki, the other atomic-bombed city, during their stay.

Although about 90% of the respondents had never heard of Kaiten, almost everyone showed a keen interest in them after hearing her explanation. Equipped with her findings, Shiigi set out to create the tour, confident that “international visitors will definitely come if there’s a plan in place.”

In the spring of 2024, during a memorial service on Ozushima, Shiigi met Kunshiro Kiyozumi, 97, a former crew member of a I-58 submarine. Kiyozumi, who had traveled to the service from Ehime Prefecture, served on a vessel that transported Kaiten human torpedoes to the southern front, providing Shiigi with a rare opportunity to hear direct testimony from the war.

Kiyozumi told her about painful memories, including how the wooden nameplates of the pilots were taken down after their Kaiten were launched.

When Shiigi told Kiyozumi that she developed an English website about the Kaiten and plans to organize a tour, he offered encouragement. “You have studied this topic very well,” he told her. “Please continue to share the history with others.”

Charm of the island

The development of the tour plans gained significant momentum after Shiigi met Sadahiro in September last year.

Drawing on his experience as a former foreign correspondent for The Yomiuri Shimbun and president of Yomiuri Travel Service Co., Sadahiro founded etwas in his hometown of Shunan that same month.

After learning of her efforts to attract international visitors to Ozushima, Sadahiro decided to provide support, viewing the project as one with significant social importance.

Sadahiro and his team, with the cooperation of local residents, organized a hands-on tour starting at JR Tokuyama Station in Shunan, a stop on the Shinkansen line, to Ozushima, which is about 10 kilometers offshore.

As only registered travel agencies can arrange the transport and accommodation, the tour is organized as a day trip, and participants need to board the ferry on their own.

In early January, the project reached a milestone with the launch of tour sales on a booking platform managed by Beyond Inc., a Tokyo-based inbound tourism firm.

Scheduled for several days in late February, each tour is expected to accommodate about 10 people, with the price set at ¥15,000 per person.

Shiigi will serve as the tour guide, leading visitors through the exhibits at the Kaiten Memorial Museum and the site of the training base. She plans to recount the heart-wrenching stories she heard from Kiyozumi.

The tour will also offer a taste of the island’s local lifestyle, including a cycle through nature and curry with ingredients including sudaidai, a local citrus fruit. The dish will be prepared by a couple who relocated to the island from Tokyo.

Shiigi aims to continue the tours with the support of Sadahiro and his team. “My goal is to share the history of Kaiten with international visitors so they can carry those stories back to their own countries,” she said.

She is determined to preserve local memories of the war, honoring the legacy entrusted to her by Kiyozumi and the families of the fallen.