is a series of cliffs on the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it ...

in Japan. It is located in the Antō part of Mikuni-chō in Sakai, Fukui Prefecture. The cliffs average in height and stretch for .Tojinbo Cliffs
Enjoy Fukui. Accessed July 22, 2024. The area is part of the Echizen-Kaga Kaigan Quasi-National Park.

Formation

The cliffs' rocks were originally formed 12 to 13 million years ago during the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

Epoch due to various volcanic activities, and were created by

magma Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma (sometimes colloquially but incorrectly referred to as ''lava'') is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also ...

mixing with

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock formed by the cementation (geology), cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or de ...

to form columnar joints of pyroxene

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomina ...

containing

Plagioclase Plagioclase ( ) is a series of Silicate minerals#Tectosilicates, tectosilicate (framework silicate) minerals within the feldspar group. Rather than referring to a particular mineral with a specific chemical composition, plagioclase is a continu ...

crystals,

Augite Augite, also known as Augurite, is a common rock-forming pyroxene mineral with formula . The crystals are monoclinic and prismatic. Augite has two prominent cleavages, meeting at angles near 90 degrees. Characteristics Augite is a solid soluti ...

and

Enstatite Enstatite is a mineral; the magnesium endmember of the pyroxene silicate mineral series enstatite (MgSiO3) – ferrosilite (FeSiO3). The magnesium rich members of the solid solution series are common rock-forming minerals found in igneous and m ...

crystals in pentagonal or hexagonal shapes, which has been eroded by the sea.Tojinbo
Japan National Tourism Organization. Accessed July 22, 2024. The area received protection by the national government in 1935 as a Natural Monument.

Legends

One legend has it that a corrupt

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

priest from , a local temple, so enraged the populace that they dragged him from the temple to the sea and, at Tōjinbō, threw him into the sea. His ghost is still said to haunt the area. An alternate legend says that the name Tōjinbō comes from a dissolute Buddhist monk. According to the legend, a Buddhist monk named Tōjinbō, who was disliked by everyone, fell in love with a beautiful princess named Aya. Tōjinbō was tricked by another admirer of Princess Aya and was pushed off these cliffs. The legend says that ever after that time Tōjinbō's

vengeful ghost In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit of a dead person who returns from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel, unnatural or unjust death. In certain cultures where funeral and burial or crem ...

would go on a rampage around the same time every year at this place, causing strong winds and rain. Some decades later, an itinerant priest took pity on Tōjinbō and held a memorial service for him. After that, the storms ceased. Image:Japan Tojinbo01n4592.jpg, Sandan Rocks Image:Japan Tojinbo12nt3200.jpg, Rosoku Rocks Image:Japan Tojinbo09nt3200.jpg, Byobu Rocks Image:Tojinbo Oike 200507.jpg, high Oike

Suicides

Tōjinbō is also a well-known place in Japan to commit suicide. According to statistics, as many as 25 people commit suicide by jumping off the high cliffs annually, a number which has risen and fallen with Japan's national economic hardships and unemployment rates. In the 2000s,

Yukio Shige is a retired Japanese police officer and head of an Nonprofit organization, NPO that works to prevent suicides at the Tōjinbō cliffs in Fukui Prefecture in Japan. His work and that of the NPO is believed to have saved over 750 lives. He is known ...

, a retired police officer, frustrated at having had to fish so many bodies out of the sea and the inaction of local authorities, began patrolling the cliffs for potential jumpers. Although 14 people committed suicide there in 2016, in 2017, there had been no suicides for months. Yukio Shige says it is partly because many people come there to catch rare creatures in the mobile phone game

Pokémon Go ''Pokémon Go'' (stylized as ''Pokémon GO'') is a 2016 augmented reality (AR) mobile game originally developed and published by Niantic in collaboration with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for iOS and Android devices. It uses mobile devic ...

.Is Pokemon Go helping stop suicide at hotspot in Japan? April 6, 2017
''

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

'' Retrieved February 26, 2018

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tojinbo IUCN Category IV Landforms of Fukui Prefecture Places of Scenic Beauty Natural monuments of Japan Cliffs of Asia Landforms of Japan Tourist attractions in Fukui Prefecture Rock formations of Japan Coasts of Japan Volcanism of Japan Miocene volcanism Sakai, Fukui