Hōkō-ji, Buddhist temple in Nishi-Nippori, Japan.
Hōkō-ji is a temple of the Hokke-shū Jinmon-ryū school at the foot of Fujimi-zaka in Nishi-Nippori, Tokyo, with the mountain name Nisshō-zan. Its grounds are enclosed by a red-brick outer wall, and in front of the gate stands a memorial to the army's boy aviator cadets, erected on 21 March 1970.
Hōkō-ji was founded in 1650 in Akasaka, in present-day Minato, by the Hōka-shū Jimon school; its founding patron was Saigō Masakazu, lord of the Awa-Tōjō domain, whose family graves remain at the temple. The grounds later became government land, so the temple moved to Yotsuya-Sakamachi in Shinjuku, and in the Meiji era it moved to its present site below Fujimi-zaka in Nishi-Nippori, paid for with the abbot's own money.
The temple belongs to the Hokke-shū Jinmon-ryū school and carries the mountain name Nisshōzan. Because it stands below Fujimi-zaka, it is commonly called Fujimi-zaka Hōkō-ji or Fujimi-zaka-shita Hōkō-ji; a few people also call it Fujimi-dera, alongside nearby temples nicknamed Hanami-dera, Tsukimi-dera and Yukimi-dera. In 2013 the temple's red-brick outer wall served as the venue for the Fujimi-zaka street photography exhibition.
The temple stands at the foot of Fujimi-zaka in Nishi-Nippori 3-chome, roughly midway between JR Nippori and Nishi-Nippori stations. The memorial to boy pilots of the Imperial Army stands in front of the gate, so it is seen before entering the grounds. The address is 3-8-6 Nishi-Nippori, Arakawa-ku.
In front of the gate stands a memorial to the Army's boy airmen, erected on 21 March 1970. Its inscription states that some 45,000 youths went to war as boy airmen from the Nomonhan Incident to the war's end, and asks passers-by to offer a prayer for the dead. A disciple of the then abbot had served as an instructor at the Otsu Army Boy Airman School, and his former pupils later joined the temple's supporters and helped build it.
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