Long line outside Tobe Zoo ticket booth on the nite of October 11th at the entrance to Tobe Zoo. It was a totally different world from the one seen in daylight. The nite air was almost festive, with the rhythmic chirping of insects and laughter and conversation joining their songs.
The “Night Zoo (夜の動物園)” has become a popular autumn tradition in Ehime from the end of September to mid-October, held on Saturday evenings.
Everyplace I looked, the zoo was packed, and it seemed like the animals were watching this enormous assembly of people. Nevertheless, the giraffe softly leaning its long neck, the hippo emerging from the water as though passing through the shimmering reflections on the surface, and the elephant standing beneath the soft lighting all had a serene, dreamlike charm that you just don't see during the day.
Tobe Zoo traces its origins to the Ehime Prefectural Dogo (道後) Zoo, founded in Matsuyama in 1953. Due to environmental and space constraints, it was relocated to its present site in Tobe Town in April 1988. Today, it stands as one of western Japan’s leading zoological parks, cherished by families, photographers, and animal lovers alike.
When I was little, I misunderstood the name Tobe Zoo — not realizing that “Tobe (砥部)” was the name of the town. In my mind, it meant tobe, as in "to fly (飛べ)," and I imagined a "Flying Zoo," a place filled with roller coasters and soaring rides, more of an amusement park than a zoo.
Anyone who has studied even a little Japanese would know that the language is full of homonyms — words that sound identical but carry entirely different meanings.
I have always loved public cultural spaces — national parks, prefectural museums, city libraries.
The public institutions in Japan are a quiet gentleness. The zoos and museums of the prefectures may be modest, but they have a genuine desire to ignite curiosity and offer moments of learning and delight. You can feel it in the hand-written signs created by the staff, and in the soft gleam of vintage display cases, polished with care over the years. Such details that breathe the spirit of warmth and conscientiousness that is Japan itself. And all this can be enjoyed at just 600 yen ($4) for an adult at Tobe Zoo which is not just affordable. It is a cultural philosophy: that knowledge and beauty should be accessible to everyone. Public cultural places are not only places of memory-making, but places of quiet mind enrichment. I can only hope that such places continue to be loved and kept, passed gently from one generation to the next.
