For the most part, visitors to Tochigi Prefecture hit the well-trodden tourist track to the rococo extravaganza of grandiose Toshogu shrine in Nikko. Yet those in search of a more refined showcasing of the Japanese aesthetic would be better directing themselves to a spot in the prefecture's southeast.
Along with Arita in Saga Prefecture and Tokoname and Seto in Aichi Prefecture, Mashiko is one of the country's best-known pottery towns. But unlike those other places, ceramic production is a relatively recent development in Mashiko.
Although excavations indicate that pottery was being made there in the Nara Period (710-784), the practice subsequently fell into decline and wasn't revived until the latter part of the Edo Period (1603-1867). Back then, when Edo (present-day Tokyo) was the biggest city in the world, with more than a million inhabitants, Mashiko's potters began producing various kinds of kitchenware to meet demand in the Kanto region.