Ichogaoka Hachiman Shrine is a shrine near Asakusabashi Bridge whose annual spring bean-throwing ceremony provides Kyoichiro Kaga with a specific place and date to investigate. In a case shaped by a list matching months to bridges and by photographs that may connect Hiromi Asai to the investigation, Kaga searches images of the shrine’s February 3 festival for Hiromi.

Setting and Annual Ceremony

Kaga identifies the shrine on a tablet image showing a crowd gathered outside it. He explains that Ichogaoka Shrine stands close to Asakusabashi Bridge and holds a festival every year on February 3 to mark the start of spring. A poster identifies the event as the Ichogaoka Hachiman Shrine Spring Bean-Throwing Ceremony, and Kaga has found a few photographs of it.

Place in the Investigation

The shrine matters because a note found in Kaga’s mother’s apartment assigns Asakusabashi Bridge to February. The list’s bridge and month pairings match those on Mutsuo Koshikawa’s calendar, giving the detectives reason to look for a connection between the two records. Matsumiya recognizes that the February entry points toward Asakusabashi Bridge and asks whether Kaga is searching the festival photographs for Hiromi Asai. Kaga confirms that he is, while noting that he has not been able to obtain many images.

Photographs and the Search for Hiromi

The search at the shrine is part of a wider effort to test connections among Hiromi, Shunichi Watabe, and people linked to the case. Kaga tells senior officers that Hiromi Asai and Watabe appear to have been connected for at least ten years, and that Watabe’s limited ties to others suggest Hiromi may have supported him financially. His reasoning eventually leads him to identify Watabe as Hiromi’s father, Tadao Asai. In that investigative pattern, the shrine’s festival photographs are not incidental memorabilia: they are a limited visual record that might locate Hiromi at a particular bridge and time, though the available evidence does not establish that the search there succeeds.