Myth of Tomorrow, Tokyo

Why you should experience Myth of Tomorrow in Tokyo, Japan.

Myth of Tomorrow is a colossal public artwork where Dogenzaka's relentless pedestrian circulation collides with an explosive field of skeletal forms, flames and saturated color suspended above one of Shibuya's principal station passages.

Set inside the elevated passage linking Shibuya Station with Shibuya Mark City near Dogenzaka and just steps from the scramble crossing, the mural occupies an uninterrupted wall above a circulation route traversed continuously by railway passengers and pedestrians. Human figures, animal forms and violent bursts of color stretch across the composition at a scale that forces the eye to move laterally through successive episodes. Station architecture places the painting directly inside metropolitan movement, allowing brief encounters from escalators and walkways to coexist with prolonged viewing from the passage opposite. The result is an immense artwork whose confrontation with destruction unfolds amid the ordinary circulation of Shibuya, placing one of Japanese modernism's most forceful images directly inside the city's daily movement.

What you should know about Myth of Tomorrow.

Myth of Tomorrow is best known for Taro Okamoto's approximately 30-meter-wide depiction of the instant of an atomic-bomb explosion, conceived as a grand statement on humanity's capacity to survive catastrophe. A Mexican businessman commissioned Okamoto in 1967 to create a mural for a hotel under construction in Mexico City, and the artist established a local studio in February 1968 before traveling repeatedly between Mexico and preparations for Expo '70 in Osaka. Okamoto completed the mural in September 1969, developing its central burning skeleton, mushroom cloud, fleeing creatures and reference to the irradiated fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryumaru across an immense composition approximately 5.5 meters high. The hotel project collapsed financially before completion, its ownership changed and the mural was removed, transferred among locations in Mexico and eventually disappeared from public knowledge. Okamoto simultaneously developed Tower of the Sun during the same creative period, producing a 30-meter painting and 70-meter sculptural structure that his memorial museum describes as paired works emerging from his travels through Central and South America.

Toshiko Okamoto identified the missing mural in storage outside Mexico City in September 2003, beginning an international recovery effort decades after its disappearance. The Taro Okamoto Memorial Foundation established the Myth of Tomorrow Restoration Project in 2004, transported the damaged work to Japan in 2005 and undertook conservation in Ehime before completing the work in June 2006. Its first Japanese public presentation at Nippon Television's Shiodome plaza drew approximately two million people during a 50-day run, followed by exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo between April 2007 and June 2008. Shibuya was selected as the permanent location in March 2008, installation inside the Shibuya Mark City connecting passage began that August and public presentation commenced in November. Fifteen years of exposure led to the first phase of a new long-term conservation campaign in 2023, and the third major phase was completed in July 2026.

How to fold Myth of Tomorrow into your trip.

Myth of Tomorrow works as the anchor for a daytime progression through medieval clan history, Taisho-period residential culture and the imperial transformation of Tokyo's western outskirts.

Begin at Konno Hachimangu, founded in 1092 and closely associated with the Shibuya clan that controlled territory around the present district during the medieval period. Shrine tradition connects the sanctuary with Chichibu lineage warrior Kawazaki Motoie and his son Shigeie, who received the Shibuya surname from Emperor Horikawa; the present shrine buildings also preserve early Edo patronage through a structure donated by Kasuga no Tsubone and Aoyama Tadan俊 after Tokugawa Iemitsu became third shogun. Continue to Kyu Asakura House, constructed in 1919 by Torajiro Asakura, whose career included service as chairman of the Tokyo Prefectural Assembly and Shibuya Ward Assembly. The 573.76-square-meter timber main house incorporates reception rooms, family quarters and a tea room beside a storehouse and circuit-style garden developed across sloping ground, preserving one of Central Tokyo's scarce Taisho-period Japanese residences predating the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake; national Important Cultural Property designation followed in 2004. Conclude at Meiji Jingu, established after the deaths of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken and formally dedicated in 1920 on ground transformed through a nationwide afforestation undertaking. Planners including Seiroku Honda, Takanori Hongo and Keiji Uehara developed a long-term forest plan using donated trees from across Japan, producing a sacred woodland intended to mature through ecological succession around the imperial sanctuary. The progression moves through the Shibuya clan's medieval religious ground, Torajiro Asakura's pre-earthquake residential estate and the creation of an imperial forest, carrying the surrounding city across warrior authority, metropolitan domestic culture and early twentieth-century state commemoration.

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