Shōwa

Early Showa wooden clinic on a corner in Aburatsu, Nichinan, Miyazaki, with tall windows on both floors, Western rooms below and Japanese rooms above. Private.

Guest annex of the Suzuki Ryokan in Aburatsu, Nichinan, built in the early Showa period when the port flourished, with one room on each floor and a small wing.

Early Showa storehouse at the Suzuki Ryokan in Aburatsu, Nichinan: two storeys of white plaster with a band under the eaves and a partly brick doorway.

West main building of the Suzuki Ryokan in Aburatsu, Nichinan, added in the early Showa period, with the entrance and kitchen below and five rooms upstairs.

Early Showa guest annex of the Suzuki Ryokan in Aburatsu, Nichinan, with a Japanese room, a Western room, a bath and solid plastered gables at each end.

The Tsukabaru Dam of 1938 in northern Miyazaki, a concrete gravity dam for hydropower with eight radial gates, was then the tallest in Japan at 87 metres.

A 1929 concrete lighthouse on Cape Toi, Miyazaki, registered in 2019, with an octagonal tower and roof garden, and the only lighthouse in Kyushu open to climb.

The Hanamine Bridge of 1929 over a historic canal in Nichinan, Miyazaki, rests on timber legs spread at about 45 degrees, a rare survival of its type.

Behind the main house sits Furusawa Brewery's early-Shōwa bottling room, the smallest on the site. A pediment over its doorway marks the shift from cask to bottle.

Hososhima Lighthouse on Cape Hyuga in Hyuga, Miyazaki, built in 1941, is an 11-metre concrete tower with a domed lantern and Showa-style arch and bracket details.

Standing quietly in the historic port district of Aburatsu in Nichinan City, Miyazaki Prefecture, Mitsuo Shoten is a wooden, tile-roofed two-story building constructed around 1929 in the pseudo-Western signboard architecture style. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2006, it is a rare southern example of an architectural fashion that swept through Tokyo and Osaka in the early Showa era — a testament to Aburatsu's prosperity during the legendary tuna boom.

Built in 1932, the Main Gate Gateposts of the Miyazaki Prefectural Office span 8.1 metres, with octagonal piers whose caps match the parapet of the building behind.

Built in 1932, the East Gate Gateposts of the Miyazaki Prefectural Office span 5.4 metres, with square piers and one north-side pier marking a secondary entrance.

The Miyazaki Prefectural Government Main Building, completed in 1932, is a striking Neo-Gothic structure of reinforced concrete with three above-ground stories and a basement. The fourth-oldest active prefectural main office in Japan — and the very oldest in Kyushu — it was designed by Oshio Akira and built by Obayashi Corporation. Inside, visitors find granite from Hiroshima's Kurahashi Island (the same Diet Stone used in Japan's National Diet Building), fossil-bearing marble handrails from Mount Gion in Miyazaki, and eight stained-glass round windows in an arrow-feather pattern. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2017, the building welcomes visitors with free guided tours on the first Sunday of each month.