Edo-Tokyo Museum reopens, breathing new life into city's pastーNHK WORLD-JAPAN NEWS

Fans of Japanese history are welcoming back a major attraction. After years of renovations, the famed Edo Tokyo Museum will reopen its doors Tuesday. Well, media were offered a sneak peek inside, and NHK World's Maria Sato shows us what it's like. Visitors are first greeted by this huge wooden bridge. It was a fixture of the old museum, and is a nod to the real Nihonbashi. It was considered the center of the old capital's business district. It's been immortalized for centuries in Japanese art, including in ukiyo-e prints. And now it serves another purpose, a bridge to Tokyo's past. The renovations aim to pull visitors even deeper into the Edo atmosphere. Modern projections are used to simulate the sky, depicting Tokyo through the seasons. Traditional curtains hang at the entrance to the new exhibition area. A rotating selection of the museum's over 350,000 artifacts will be shown here. For the first few weeks, samurai armor from the Edo period will be on display. It's just one of the museum's new renovated areas. The facility was shut down for four years. There were actually concerns over being closed that long. But now it's reopened and continues to preserve Tokyo's 400-year history. The museum is in Sumida Ward, an area still known for its Edo atmosphere. Before the pandemic, it welcomed more than a million visitors from around the globe every year. And now it's ready to bring in more. Kutsusawa Hiroyuki is one of the museum's curators. He says they now have audio guides in 13 languages, all accessible by smartphone. He also says they're hoping visitors will deepen their experiences with new immersive exhibits. Take this streetscape, for example. It recreates daily life in Edo, even the tougher jobs. It's pretty heavy. Crossing under Nihonbashi, the city enters a new era. The late 19th century marked the beginning of the Meiji period, when Western influence began arriving on Japanese shores. This clock shop has been turned into an exhibit, showing that rapidly changing time. The government's modernization policies spread technology and foreign culture across the country. It also shows how the lives of Tokyo residents changed over the years, all the way up to the modern day. Kutsusawa says he hopes the exhibit helps those who know a little about Tokyo's history, dive deeper into its past. I think a lot of foreign visitors know some things about the city from media or anime. I hope that by visiting our exhibition, they can connect the dots and learn more about the history and culture to get a clearer picture of what the capital has become. This clock tower became a major landmark in Ginza. In fact, hints of these exhibits can be found all over Tokyo. Understanding the past is key to appreciating the city we know today. Maria Sato, NHK World.