It may not always seem like it, but Tokyo does happen to be a city by the sea. Its easternmost wards – Ota, Shinagawa, Minato, Chuo, Koto, and Edogawa – all have significant shorelines. They border the famous Tokyo Bay, a vast stretch of water sheltered by Chiba Prefecture’s Boso Peninsula and eastern Kanagawa. And yet, Tokyo is far from a beachgoer’s paradise. Mass reclamation for industry and residential space has left much of Tokyo’s shoreline out of sight, and even often out of mind.
One major exception remains, however: the island of Odaiba.
Linked to the Tokyo mainland by the famous Rainbow Bridge, Odaiba (お台場) is these days by far the most well known of the myriad blocky man-made islands that hug Tokyo’s largely artificial shore. Since the 1990s, the island has become a popular tourist destination. It plays host to major malls, a life-size, moving Gundam Statue, movie theaters, museums, and more. Internationally renowned architect Tange Kenzo designed Fuji TV’s iconic headquarters on the island, complete with spherical core alongside rectangular wings. Perhaps most importantly for pleasure-seekers, Odaiba features one of the very few sandy beaches fit for recreation in all of Tokyo Bay. (Artificial though it, too, is.)
The view from that beach reveals something of the deeper history of this relatively new landmass. Two vaguely diamond-shaped masses protrude some feet off the water, one connected to the Odaiba beachfront, another emerging from waves on its lonesome. Brick retaining walls – not unlike those one might see at a samurai castle – surround these islets.
These are the two remaining daiba (台場) from which Odaiba takes its name: defensive fortifications built in the waning days of the samurai in order to fend off attacks by the encroaching Western powers.
These fortifications of a bygone era can tell us much of the story of Odaiba, and of the Tokyo seashore. Best of all, they can tell us just how it was Odaiba got its “O.”
Black Ships on the Horizon
Roll the clock back a good 170 years, and watch as Tokyo’s shoreline recedes. Even in the 1850s, the shore near Edo castle was far from pristine, natural sediment. As early as the 1600s, the Tokugawa-led Shogunate government was already extending the shores of its massive capital city via landfill, creating new lands for agriculture, housing, and defense. And defense, of course, is exactly the topic at hand.
In July of 1853, four threatening warships of the American military sailed towards the port of Uraga at the entrance of Edo (now Tokyo) Bay. Commodore Matthew Perry led the squadron; his orders were to finally open Japan’s ports to US trade after centuries of self-imposed isolation.
Perry was far from the first to attempt this feat. Nearly 30 American vessels had aimed to accomplish the same since the end of the Revolutionary War some six decades earlier. The British and Russians made major attempts as well. Even the Dutch, the sole Western country granted a trade concession in Japan, took a whack at it.
Until now, Japan had firmly rejected any overtures, peaceful or bellicose, at establishing new relations from any Western country. In 1837, the US merchant ship Morrison had come under fire in the same Uraga straights while attempting to open trade with Japan under the guise of returning seven shipwrecked Japanese. From 1845, Shogunal law stated that Japan may give provisions to foreign ships in great distress, but it’d send away all others. And they’d use force whenever necessary.
But facing the fearsome modern armaments of Perry’s “black ships,” it was clear force would be of little use.
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The Helpless Shogunate
Perry’s squadron had Paixhans guns – the first naval cannons to fire explosive shells. Their power was such that they heralded the end of the age of wooden military ships. Not long after Perry’s arrival, world navies would outfit their warships in iron. Nothing in Japan could compete.
Japan had isolated itself to avoid foreign nations chipping away at its territory. (They’d seen that happen to the once-intimidating Qing dynasty of China.) But the same isolation had also left Japan at a technological and military disadvantage. And in the age of steam power, the natural defense granted an island polity like Japan meant less and less.
Perry purposefully displayed his ships’ armaments as he sailed towards Edo bay, firing off blank shots from his 73 cannon. He sent off survey boats, threatening to destroy any Japanese ship that attempted to interfere.
When the local samurai officials at Uraga finally gave in and boarded the USS Mississippi to discuss Perry’s intentions, even his good-will gifts contained blatant threats. He presented his Japanese counterparts with a white flag, explaining it would come in useful if Japan attempted to get him to leave by force.
Perry’s blithe recalcitrance startled the county’s leadership in Edo. The inability of their coastal defenses to do anything about this demanding barbarian was a source of great humiliation. And the timing could scarcely have been worse: the Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyoshi, was on his deathbed.
Indecisiveness gripped the Shogunate. They finally accepted a letter Perry bore from President Filmore. Satisfied for the moment, Perry departed – but promised to return in one year’s time for a final answer regarding Japan’s opening.
The Shogunate would only have a single year to mount a response.
Birth of the Odaiba
How to answer Perry’s inquest was still a matter of heated debate. What was not in question, however, was that the maritime approaches to the Shogunal capital needed better defensive capabilities. Perry’s squadron had pushed through to Edo Bay with no care for the antiquated cannon and ships sent to halt his passage. Japan couldn’t allow that to happen again.
Within days of Perry’s departure, the ailing shogun, Ieyoshi, passed away. His heir, Iesada, quickly succeed him. Yet Iesada, then in his late 20s, was sickly and unable to take part directly in affairs of state. In this most perilous of times, he left policy matters to the head of his Council of Elders (the roju), Abe Masahiro.
Abe dithered as to the shogunate’s course of action towards Perry’s letter, even going so far as to break the tradition of Shogunal supremacy by polling the nation’s daimyo (feudal lords) as to what should be done. However, he took one course of immediate action. Abe ordered building a series of defensive batteries to defend Edo.
These would be the daiba from which Odaiba takes its name.
A Man of Ability
The man for the job would be one Egawa Hidetatsu. Egawa was a trusted official of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and ran their holdings in the coastal fiefdoms of Izu and Sagawa. He took coastal defense very seriously, and was in close communication with samurai involved in the semi-legal study of Western technology (ragaku, “Dutch learning”).
The Shogunate had already put him in charge of the defense of Edo bay in 1839 in reaction to the Morrison’s attempt to reach the shogunal capital. Since then, he’d used his position to press for modern armaments and the import of Western weaponry. Since the Shogunate banned those weapons, he’d only gotten so far.
This time, things were different. For the moment, he had the backing of a Shogunate aware of just how far behind its defensive capabilities had fallen. Egawa could now bring to bear his knowledge of foreign weaponry.
He scoured books on European fortifications and gunnery, forming a plan to construct 11 modern marine batteries stretching from the promontory in Edo’s Shinagawa district. The Shogunate put his plan into effect almost immediately. Construction began in August, a mere month after Perry’s departure.
The Odaiba Rise: Betting on the Batteries
The project was massive, employing 5000 laborers to haul the earth needed to create landfills for the first three batteries. Crews leveled plateaus from Shinagawa’s beloved Gotenyama neighborhood, once home to a forest of cherry trees, so that they could repurpose its earth for the landfills needed for the maritime defenses. They shipped the boulders used to line the new fortifications’ walls by sea from Egawa’s jurisdictions in Izu and Sagami. Such was the quantity of rubble needed that, at times, they employed 2000 hauling boats.
Egawa designed the daiba so the batteries could fire upon approaching ships from multiple angles. Any enemy ship that might enter the harbor would have to contend not only with attacks from the front, but from their sides. A flurry of explosive cannonballs would attempt to send approaching ships back whence they came – or to the depths of Edo Bay.
In order to achieve this, however, there would have to actually be modern cannon in Japan with which to equip the daiba. For a decade, Egawa had proposed building modern furnaces capable of casting cannon. Now, at last, he received permission.
Production of an advanced reverberatory furnace based on Dutch lines began in Shimoda in 1953. The furnace, relocated to Saitama following incursions from one of Perry’s sailors, is now a UNESCO world heritage site.
Return of the Black Ships
In February of 1854, the black smoke billowing from the great vessels of an American fleet was once again sighted off Uraga. Perry had returned, ahead of schedule. Overtures from other foreign fleets wishing to accompany his squadron to impose their own treaties with Japan caused Perry to speed up his mission. This time, he came not with four ships, but with ten, boasting 1,600 men.
Deeper into Edo Bay, only three of the planned eleven daiba were yet complete. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd batteries were ready for action. Three others were still under construction. Some of the planned eleven daiba would never be built.
Yet these three batteries stood at the ready as Perry’s fleet sailed towards Edo. The Shogunate attempted to convince Perry to land in Uraga as he had before. But Perry refused; he would only negotiate in Edo itself. Finally, as a compromise, the then-tiny village of Yokohama became the site where Perry’s fleet alighted while “The Star-Spangled Banner” played.
Weeks of negotiations followed, with tensions lessened by the exchange of gifts (a miniature railroad from Perry especially fascinated) and performances of sumo wrestling and (uncomfortably, by our modern standards) minstrelsy.
Finally, on March 31st, 1854, the parties signed the Convention of Kanagawa. The Shogunate had given in to almost all of Perry’s demands. Somewhat enhanced defensive capabilities or no, the Shogunate’s military was still no match for the American fleet. Treaty ports would soon open in Shimoda, as well as in Hakodate on the island soon to be called Hokkaido. Japan’s age of self-imposed isolation had ended.
Not a Shot Fired
Japan eventually completed six of the daiba batteries, known as the Shinagawa Battery Islands. They placed an additional land-based battery on shore at Gotenyama, where crews had sourced much of the land for reclamation. The Shogunate considered the daiba a main line of defense for the city, and ordered trusted daimyo lords close to the shogunate to garrison them. Full-fledged operations began in 1855. Kawagoe Domain garrisoned the 1st battery, Aizu the 2nd, and Oshi the 3rd. Through the Bakumatsu era – the final years of Shogunal rule – the daiba continued to stand at the ready.
Then came 1868, and the Boshin War. Upstart domains long alienated by the Shogunate moved against it, crushing its armies outside of Kyoto. Their rallying cry was the restoration of the long-sidelined emperor to political power.
Despite intense fighting in the south, Edo fell without a fight. The war continued for long months in the north, featuring multiple naval engagements with modern warships.
In Edo Bay, however, all was peaceful. The daiba never fired a shot.
The new government made good on its promise to restore the emperor, Meiji, who shortly moved his base of operations to what had been Edo Castle. They renamed Edo to Tokyo; Edo Bay, correspondingly, became Tokyo Bay. The new Army Ministry of Japan took over management of the Shinagawa batteries. In 1870, they built a lighthouse on the 2nd daiba – it can now be seen at the open-air architectural museum Meiji Mura in Aichi Prefecture. The 4th island became the home for a modern ship foundry.
The Fate of the Odaiba
The modernizing Meiji government looked upon its burgeoning population and industrial needs and saw the waters of Tokyo Bay as unused potential. It returned to the reclamation projects of old, beginning by extending the shores of sleepy Yokohama, quickly becoming a major city in its own right.
As the decades wended on, the landfill projects reached Tokyo, and the mouth of the Tama river. The new lands become the Keihin Industrial Zone. Reclamation from the north of the bay began after the devastation of WWII. By the 1960s most of the daiba had either been destroyed to assist with increased ship navigation in the bay, or had simply disappeared as new landfills arose where they had once stood.
By the 1960s, only two of the batteries remained – the 3rd and 6th daiba. The governor of Tokyo Prefecture (then known as Tokyo-Fu) designated them as historical landmarks and public parks in 1924, a rare bit of historical conservation for the time. It was a lucky thing, as through the coming decades, the reclamation only sped up. In the 1950s, Tokyo erected a plot of land directly south of the daiba. Commercial lumber floated in the water basin between the batteries and the reclaimed land.
By 1979, 90% of the tidal flats which had once encircled Edo Bay had been destroyed. Before long, authorities would fill in 20% of the entire former surface of the sloshing water of Tokyo Bay.
Odaiba to the Future
By this time, beaches and public recreation had essentially ceased to exist in Tokyo Bay. The children of Edo and Tokyo had once used these shores for fishing and shellfish gathering. This was the origin of the term Edomae (江戸前, Edo-front) in Edomae sushi, the style of sushi that originated in the region.
In order to counter this depressing situation, the local government decided to build artificial beaches to allow Tokyo residents at least some access to maritime relaxation. The lumber basin near the daiba was moved, and a sandy public beach was created in its stead. Daiba Park was born.
Behind the two surviving daiba and their beach rose “landfill no. 13” (「東京湾埋立第13号地」), completed in 1979. Heavy industry quickly occupied the mass of land. It was so close at hand to the daiba that it was soon called by that name: Odaiba, with the honorific “O” appended to the word as had long been tradition. The batteries had received that “O” (as in onii-san, “honorable older brother,” etc.) since their early days, denoting the importance that the late-stage Shogunate placed upon them.
A land bridge now connects the 3rd battery to “landfill no. 13,” allowing for easy access to its park. Meanwhile, the 6th battery is an inaccessible historical site, the only of the daiba still an island to itself. One can easily view it from the Rainbow Bridge, or during a pleasant stroll around the park on the 3rd daiba. All around are recreation facilities, industrial parks, raised railway tracks, and more.
As one of the few signs of the dramatic history of these waters, the daiba deserve their honorific “O.” They help us remember Tokyo Bay as it was, as Edo Bay – and reflect on the history of a waterway now changed far beyond recognition.
What to Read Next:
The Disappearance of Meiji: Why it’s Hard to Find Tokyo’s Recent Past
Main Sources:
Koike, K. (1990). Artificial Beach Construction on the Shores of Tokyo Bay, Japan. Journal of Coastal Research, 6, 45–54.
The Shinagawa Batteries. Shinigawa Historical Museum.
Marine Parks Navi. お台場海浜公園 & 台場公園.TOKYO PORT TERMINAL CORPORATION
港区今昔STORY. 第1回 台場公園（第三台場）. Kissポート財団.
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