Shōwa

A six-arch concrete viaduct of about 1939 in Oguni, Kumamoto: 116 m long, four 20 m arches, pierced spandrels and a local bamboo-reinforcement story. On the trail.

A three-arch concrete railway bridge of about 1938 in Oguni, Kumamoto, built from near-semicircular arches and flared piers, paired with Doyama Bridge across a hill.

An eleven-arch concrete viaduct of 1937 in Oguni, Kumamoto: 136 m long with a 23 m pier, the longest and tallest bridge left on the Miyanoharu Line. Off the trail.

A three-arch concrete railway bridge of about 1938 in Oguni, Kumamoto, almost identical to nearby Shioigawa Bridge except for its piers; the two frame a green hill.

A curved nine-arch concrete railway bridge of 1937 in Oguni, Kumamoto, with the line's smallest spans at 7 m, lying low across a valley of rice paddies; 80 m.

A curved four-arch concrete railway bridge of about 1938 in Oguni, Kumamoto. Its steel span over the highway was removed after closure, so the arches end abruptly.

An unstaffed stop in Nishiki with a small steel shelter of 1953 and a platform of concrete and turfed bank, registered as an accent in the farmland still in service.

A cantilevered steel shelter of 1963 and a 110-metre steel platform built partly from old rails at Taragi-Shorenji, formerly Higashi-Taragi, a light design.

Built in 1937 at Tamana High School in Kumamoto, this concrete pond reads as the character 中 seen from above and, with the school buildings, spells out 玉中.

Designed by Takeda Goichi and completed in 1931 as the library of Kumamoto Medical College, this reinforced concrete hall was moved 48 metres intact in 2006.

A timber kindergarten of 1929, paid for by an American Lutheran church, planned around daylight and ventilation, with a curved porch gable above an arched window.

Raised in 1938 where a storm surge had breached the Gunchiku sea wall, this three-arch sluice gate was cut in stone at a time when concrete had become standard.

Built in 1931 in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto, Shin-Onsen is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property — a rare wooden public bathhouse that survived the devastating 2020 floods and embodies the spirit of Japan's early Showa-era hot spring culture.

The Sagara-mura Furusato-kan in Sagara Village, Kumamoto Prefecture, is a two-storey wooden building originally constructed in 1942 as the office of the former Shiura Village and carefully relocated to its present site beside Sagara Onsen Sayuri in 2000. With its hipped tiled roof and generous bands of windows, it is a rare surviving example of early Showa-era rural Japanese government architecture, registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2007.

Built in 1926 in central Yatsushiro, this timber townhouse carries glazed doors across its full upper frontage, a balustrade, and two twelve-mat rooms behind.

The Takaki Clinic of 1931 in Kikuchi, Kumamoto, a two-storey timber clinic opposite the high school, has a half-timbered front with dormers on a half-hipped roof.

This Lutheran church in central Kumamoto, built in 1950 as a late work of William Merrell Vories, has a pointed tower, hammer-beam trusses and pointed arches.

A brick water tower at Kumamoto's Hamada Shoyu, built around 1950 and still pumping the well water used to make its soy sauce, rebuilt after the 2016 earthquake.

About 8 square meters, the Hamada Shoyu Yokan is a 1930s former tobacco shop with Western detailing, set at a long-running soy sauce brewery in Kumamoto.

A 1933 timber inn entrance on the Kuma River in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto, registered in 2013. See its hip-and-gable porch, courtyard glass doors, and post-flood revival.