★★★★★ 5.0
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NHK Museum of Broadcasting
This building is sitting on top of Japan's very first radio station, but you can't see it anymore because it's buried right underneath your feet! On July 12th, 1925, exactly ONE HUNDRED years ago, Japan's very first radio waves shot out from this exact spot on Mt. Atago, making this the birthplace of Japanese broadcasting. Inside, you'll discover the world's FIRST museum built just for radio and TV stuff, with thirty THOUSAND pieces of old broadcasting equipment. That's like having every single kid in your school bring ten different radios and microphones! The coolest part? You can stand in the same spot where Japan's first TV experiment happened in 1939, and even try being a weather reporter in their special studio. Look for the giant ice blocks display that shows how they cooled down those super-hot early radio machines before air conditioning existed!
Did You Know?
- Fact 1: The NHK Museum of Broadcasting stands on the site of Japan’s first dedicated radio broadcasting station atop Mt. Atago, which began operations in July 1925—just months after the country’s very first radio broadcast, which was improvised in a school library using blocks of ice to cool the equipment and a unique ‘double-button’ microphone. This makes the museum not only a repository of media history but also the literal birthplace of Japanese broadcasting, with a monument nearby marking the original broadcast’s unconventional origins.
- Fact 2: The museum is home to an extensive collection of broadcasting artifacts, including the first television set in Japan—created by Kenjiro Takayanagi, who famously broadcast the simple character ‘イ’ (the letter ‘I’) as the nation’s first TV image. Visitors can see the evolution of cameras and microphones from the 1920s to the present, including rare items like a ‘drop bag’ used to deliver disaster footage by helicopter, and even record their own voice using a replica of an early 20th-century microphone to experience the audio quality of the era.
- Fact 3: Families and children are especially drawn to the museum’s interactive second floor, which features a hands-on TV studio where kids can step into the roles of news anchors or weather presenters, and a dedicated children’s area showcasing beloved characters from NHK’s kids’ programs. The fourth-floor Program Library allows visitors to watch 8,000 classic NHK shows, including the iconic New Year’s Eve Singing Contest, while multi-language touchscreens make the rich history accessible to international guests.