Sessho-seki

Published: Aug 11, 2026

Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Sessho-sekinine-tailed foxNasuvolcanicJizo statues

Representative image — not a photograph of this location.

The legend says that a nine-tailed fox, having failed to destroy the imperial court in the guise of a court lady, was hunted down on the Nasu moor and transformed into a stone that killed anything that came near it. The setting makes the story easy to believe: the Sessho-seki sits in a bare volcanic hollow at Nasu Yumoto where sulphurous gas seeps out of the ground, nothing much grows, and the smell is constant. The area is called Sai-no-Kawara after the Buddhist riverbed of the afterlife, and it is filled with rows of small stone Jizo figures, worn and lichened, several thousand of them.

In March 2022 the stone split in two. Cracks had been visible for years and the break was natural, but it made international news, and the local tourism association held a memorial and peace ceremony for it. Both halves are still there. The site is free, sits above the oldest hot spring village in the area, and the walk across the gas field on raised boardwalks is genuinely strange.

Essential Information

Opening Hours

Open access | Boardwalks closed when volcanic gas levels are high

Closed: Open year-round, subject to gas closures

Entrance Fee

Free | Free parking

Best Season

Late October for autumn colour on the moor | Winter mornings for visible steam

Visit Duration

30–45 minutes

Getting There

Access Information

Yumoto, Nasu. About 25 minutes by car from Nasu IC, or 40 minutes by bus from JR Kuroiso Station followed by a 3-minute walk. Free to visit, with free parking nearby and additional public parking in Nasu Yumoto. Access can be restricted when volcanic gas levels are high.

Insider Guide

Premium

**Gas closures are real.** This is an active fumarole field and the boardwalks close when hydrogen sulphide concentrations rise. Warning signs and barriers are not decorative. Do not linger in hollows, and leave if you feel unwell. **Walk the Sai-no-Kawara, not just the stone.** The split rock is the headline, but the thousands of small Jizo figures across the slope are what make the place. Twenty minutes on the boardwalks covers it. **Bathe in Nasu Yumoto afterwards.** The village below is the oldest hot spring settlement in the area and the Shika-no-yu public bath, in continuous use for well over a thousand years, is a few minutes away — the source of the same sulphurous water that makes the field above so barren. **Winter morning is the atmosphere.** Steam and gas condense visibly in cold air and the hollow fills with it. That is also when the boardwalks are icy, so grip matters. **Combine with the Nasu ropeway.** Mt. Chausu and its ropeway are further up the same road, which makes a natural morning-and-afternoon pairing.

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