Hyper Edohaku: Play your way through the Museum in this Game

The Edo-Tokyo Museum is a popular place to learn about the history and culture of Edo (present-day Tokyo). Although it has been closed for extensive renovation since April 2022, fans can still experience the museum collection through smartphone apps. The second version of the app, Meiji Ginza Edition, was released in April. Through the game, feel the atmosphere of the Meiji period (1868-1912).

A new version of Hyper Edohaku, the Edo-Tokyo Museum’s popular interactive phone app, is now available.

Take a journey back in time to Ginza during the Meiji period, when Japan experienced rapid Westernization, and discover the birth of modern Japanese culture and customs.

In 1868, the Edo period came to an end, bringing to a close more than two and a half centuries of rule by the Tokugawa shoguns. The city formerly known as Edo now became Tokyo and the curtain rose on the Meiji period: the era of Japanese modernization.

Japan began to import a wide array of ideas, technologies, values, and culture from the West, quickly developing into a modern nation-state. With this app, experience the rapidly changing city and lives of ordinary people during this time, as told through the story of one family.

Time-Travel through the Meiji Period

Follow the story of Akira and Haru across the 45 years of the Meiji period as they unfolded in the iconic Tokyo neighborhood of Ginza 4-chome.

1. ca. 1868

After over 260 years, the period of rule by the shoguns has finally come to a close and the city of Edo is reborn as Tokyo. The new era known as Meiji will usher in rapid modernization and change. At this point, the neighborhood of Ginza still retains signs from the old feudal days.

2. ca. 1877

Following the fire of 1872, Ginza is evolving into a new district more resilient to the conflagrations that have regularly devastated Tokyo across its history. Brick buildings signal the emergence of Western-style architecture in the neighborhood.

3. ca. 1887

Westernization is advancing and people are welcoming the new era that has now well and truly arrived. Ginza sits at the heart of commerce and communication in Tokyo. Akira has started working as a newspaper reporter.

4. 1907

During the final years of Meiji, Ginza has transformed into a wealthy commercial district. The streets bustle with shoppers and visitors. Akira and Haru are blessed with a daughter who they call, appropriately enough, Gin.

Find 100 Items from the Museum Collection

Ginza encapsulated how the city was then an evolving, exciting blend of the new and the old, of Japanese and Western. Hidden in the cityscape are 100 items, especially selected from the 350,000 in the museum collection! Find 60 items from the museum collection and travel back in time to four different points in modern Tokyo history.

*Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau, Tokyo Tourism Representative, Tourism Garden Pty Ltd