Showa Onsen

Showa Onsen in Amagasaki, Hyogo prefecture, Japan, draws its name from the Showa era (1926-1989) of the Emperor Hirohito, a period of extraordinary transformation for Japan from militarism through devastation to economic miracle, and represents the urban hot spring culture of the Hanshin Industrial Zone — the densely urbanized corridor between Osaka and Kobe along Osaka Bay where heavy industry, port facilities, and dense residential neighborhoods create the distinctive working-class urban fabric in which neighborhood sento and onsen have historically served the bathing and social needs of factory and dock workers. Amagasaki, historically a major center of steel, textile, and chemical production, developed a rich neighborhood bathing culture served by the public sento and local onsen establishments that provided the daily bathing facility unavailable in the small worker apartments characteristic of Japanese industrial urban housing. The bicarbonated simple carbonated mineral waters of the Showa Onsen provide a distinctly mineral therapeutic quality to the neighborhood bathing tradition of this Osaka Bay industrial city.