Ritsumeikan University International Peace Museum

About

Ritsumeikan University opened this museum on May 19, 1992, to give concrete form to its founding principle of "peace and democracy." It sits inside the university's Kinugasa Campus in Kita Ward, Kyoto, at 56-1 Tojiin Kitamachi, and was designated a museum-equivalent facility in February 2005 before reopening after renewal that April. The exhibits span the period Japan calls the "Fifteen Years' War" through to modern conflict, recreating everyday Japanese life during wartime, simulating the atomic bombings, and displaying material on the Cold War and present-day peace efforts. An International Peace Media Library was added in 2007. At the entrance stand a relief of Tezuka Osamu's Phoenix and the Wadatsumi statue, a memorial to students who died in the war. The museum opens 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with last entry at 4:00, and closes the day after Sundays and public holidays (opening on a Sunday holiday itself and closing the following day instead), over the New Year, and during the university's designated summer break. The entry fee is 400 yen for adults, 300 yen for middle and high school students, and 200 yen for elementary school students, with a 50-yen discount per person for groups of twenty or more. Holders of a disability certificate, an atomic bomb survivor's health handbook, or a war-disabled certificate, plus one companion, as well as Ritsumeikan University students and staff, are admitted free.