01 · The man
Sakamoto Ryoma
He held no office, commanded no army, and was murdered at 31 — a month before the shogunate he helped topple actually fell. Japan has been in love with him ever since, and nowhere more than here.
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Photo: Adobe Stock / LicensedChecked against official sources · updated · Takumi Yamada
What Kochi is
Kochi in 5 stories
Kochi is a Pacific port in a prefecture that is 84% forest, and the city most passengers arrive knowing nothing about. It has one of Japan's twelve original castle keeps, katsuo tataki, bonito seared over straw, and Sakamoto Ryoma, whose statue faces the sea at Katsurahama. Every ship docks at Kochi New Port, a working harbour about 25 minutes from the centre by shuttle, with the beach 10 minutes away by taxi.
02 · The dish
Katsuo tataki
A metre of rice straw burns at around 800°C for less than a minute. The outside of the fish cooks; the inside does not. Everything about this dish is that thirty seconds.
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03 · The festival
Yosakoi
Most Japanese festivals are centuries old and unchangeable. This one was designed by a chamber of commerce seventy years ago, has almost no rules, and has spread further than any traditional festival in the country.
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04 · The crafts
Tosa paper & blades
Kochi is 84% forest — the highest of any Japanese prefecture — with fast clean rivers running through it. That single fact produced both the thinnest handmade paper in the world and the knives Japanese farmers have used for six centuries.
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05 · The market
The Sunday Market
It has run since 1690. Roughly 300 stalls stretch a kilometre down the avenue to the castle gate, and it opens every Sunday of the year except two. If your call lands on one, rearrange everything.
Read the storyThe year in Kochi
When to come, and what you'll find
Cruise seasons run spring to autumn, but the port changes underneath them.
MarchSpring katsuo begins
The first northbound bonito — lean and clean. The purists' season.
AprilCastle cherry blossom
One of only twelve original keeps, framed in blossom.
MayGreen and warm
Bamboo shoots at the Sunday Market and comfortable walking everywhere.
JuneRainy season
Kochi gets serious rain. Hirome Market is roofed and full of people waiting it out.
JulyHot and humid
Yosakoi teams practise in the evenings across the city.
Aug 9–12Yosakoi Matsuri
18,000 dancers, roads closed, the whole city out. The Sunday Market pauses for it.
SeptemberAutumn katsuo arrives
Modori-gatsuo — the returning fish, fat and rich. The other camp's season.
OctoberThe best month
Clear, dry, comfortable, and the market at its most abundant.
NovemberYuzu harvest
The prefecture that grows most of Japan's yuzu, at its peak.
Dec–FebMild winter
Kochi rarely freezes; the Sunday Market runs regardless.
Read the culture, then plan the clock: the Kochi day plans and the Top 10 turn all of this into a day that ends at the gangway with an hour to spare.