Nagoya Local Quiz Practice: Questions and Explanations

Correct answerTebasaki (chicken wings)

Tebasaki are chicken wingtips fried crisp, brushed with a sweet-savory glaze, and finished with pepper and sesame. A staple of Nagoya izakaya, the peppery wings grew from bar snack into a signature of Nagoya cuisine, with specialty chains carrying them nationwide.

Source:なごやめし22選（なごやめし公式サイト）

Correct answerHitsumabushi

Hitsumabushi is finely sliced grilled eel served over rice in a wooden tub. The ritual is to enjoy it three ways: first as is, then with condiments, and finally doused with broth or tea. The name is said to combine ohitsu, the tub, with mabusu, to mix in.

Source:ひつまぶし（こってり愛知de首都圏・Aichi Now）なごやめし22選（なごやめし公式サイト）

Correct answerHorikawa

The Horikawa canal was dug in step with the building of Nagoya Castle. Carrying goods from the port at Atsuta up to the castle town, it powered Nagoya's economy and still flows through the city center today.

Source:堀川の開削（名古屋市）

Correct answerNagoya TV Tower

The Nagoya TV Tower was built as Japan's first integrated broadcast tower, standing 180 meters tall and designed by Tachu Naito. After a later renovation, it became the first tower in Japan designated an Important Cultural Property. It now bears the name Chubu Electric Power MIRAI TOWER.

Source:当タワーの歴史（中部電力 MIRAI TOWER）

Correct answerAtsuta Jingu

Atsuta Jingu enshrines the Kusanagi Sword, one of the Three Sacred Treasures, as its object of worship. Tradition holds that Miyasuhime, consort of the hero Yamato Takeru, first enshrined the sword here. Affectionately called 'Atsuta-san,' its deep green precincts are an oasis in the city.

Source:熱田神宮の歴史（熱田神宮）

Correct answerNagoya Castle

Nagoya Castle rose from a great public-works project that mobilized the daimyo, becoming the seat of the Owari Tokugawa line. Golden shachihoko crown its keep, beloved as a symbol of the castle and the city. The Honmaru Palace, lost in the war, was faithfully rebuilt from historical records and fully opened in 2018.

Source:名古屋城の概要（名古屋城公式ウェブサイト）

Correct answerMorning

'Morning' service is the beloved custom of coffee shops in Nagoya and wider Aichi: order a drink in the morning and toast, a boiled egg, or more comes free. Shops compete on generosity, some adding sweet red bean paste, and a weekend breakfast at the kissaten is a way of life.

Source:なごやめし22選（なごやめし公式サイト）

Correct answerNagoya Railroad

Meitetsu, short for Nagoya Railroad, is a major private railway with roughly 444 kilometers of lines across Aichi and Gifu, including the link to Chubu Centrair International Airport. From its hub at Meitetsu Nagoya Station, lines fan out toward Inuyama, Gifu, Toyohashi, and the airport.

Source:会社概要（名古屋鉄道）

Correct answerTrue

Nana-chan is the 6.1-meter mannequin installed in 1973 to mark the first anniversary of the Meitetsu Department Store's Seven Building. Her ever-changing outfits, swapped for seasons and events, have made her the classic meeting spot in front of Nagoya Station for half a century.

Source:まちなみデザイン賞 ナナちゃん人形（名古屋市）

Correct answerTrue

The Osu Daido Chonin Matsuri is a festival held every October across the Osu shopping district, featuring performances by street artists gathered from all over Japan along with an oiran procession, making it one of Nagoya's signature autumn traditions.

Source:大須大道町人まつり（名古屋市）

Correct answerTokugawa Art Museum

Opened in 1935, the Tokugawa Art Museum holds more than ten thousand daimyo heirlooms handed down in the Owari Tokugawa family, built around Ieyasu's own estate. Its holdings include the celebrated Tale of Genji illustrated scrolls among nine National Treasures and 59 Important Cultural Properties.

Source:徳川美術館（名古屋コンシェルジュ）徳川美術館（Wikipedia）

Correct answerAnkake spa

Ankake spaghetti emerged in Nagoya in the early 1960s: thick pre-boiled noodles are pan-fried, then cloaked in a peppery, glossy sauce. The classic order is 'Mirakan,' topped with sausage and vegetables, and the dish's spicy thickness has earned it a devoted local following.

Source:あんかけスパゲッティ（Wikipedia）

Correct answerTenmusu

Tenmusu is a small rice ball wrapped around shrimp tempura. It is said to have begun as a staff meal at Senju, a tempura restaurant in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, and reached Nagoya through a licensed offshoot, where it took off and became a fixture of Nagoya cuisine and a favorite gift.

Source:天むす（Wikipedia）

Correct answerNagono Castle (那古野城)

Nagono Castle was built by the Imagawa clan and seized by Oda Nobuhide, Nobunaga's father; the young Nobunaga is said to have spent his childhood there. After it was abandoned, that same ground was later chosen as the site of Nagoya Castle. Nagoya's downtown was built atop the memory of a Sengoku-era castle.

Source:前史・那古野城跡（名古屋城公式ウェブサイト）

Correct answerKiyosu-goshi

The Kiyosu-goshi, carried out alongside the building of Nagoya Castle, moved the town of Kiyosu to Nagoya wholesale: some 60,000 people, about a hundred temples and shrines, and 67 town blocks. A popular song lamented that 'an unexpected Nagoya rises while flowery Kiyosu turns to fields,' and the move laid the grid of the castle town.

Source:築城と城下町の形成、清須越（名古屋城公式ウェブサイト）

Correct answerMeijo Line

The Meijo Line is the first subway line in Japan to run as a loop. Completed as a full circle in 2004, it rings the city center through Ozone, Sakae, Kanayama, and Nagoya University, about 26.4 kilometers around, a rarity among the world's subway systems.

Source:名古屋市営地下鉄名城線（Wikipedia）

Correct answerPort of Nagoya Public Aquarium

The Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium opened in 1992 and is one of the few facilities in Japan to keep orcas. Split into north and south buildings, it is also known for breeding research on dolphins, belugas, and sea turtles, and the training sessions in its vast main pool draw crowds.

Source:名古屋港水族館（Wikipedia）

Correct answerNagoya City Science Museum

The Nagoya City Science Museum's planetarium, 'Brother Earth,' spans a 35-meter dome and was certified by Guinness World Records in 2011 as the world's largest. Its live, curator-narrated star shows are a signature, complementing floors of hands-on science exhibits.

Source:「世界最大のプラネタリウム」のギネス世界記録認定について（名古屋市科学館）

Correct answerNoritake

Noritake began as Nippon Toki Gomei Kaisha, founded in 1904 by Ichizaemon Morimura and partners in the Noritake district of Nagoya that gave the brand its name. A pioneer of Japan's fine Western tableware, its former factory grounds are now open to the public as Noritake Garden.

Source:ノリタケの歴史 日本陶器合名会社の設立（ノリタケ）ノリタケの森（Aichi Now）

Correct answerProcession of Local Heroes

The Procession of Local Heroes is the centerpiece of the Nagoya Festival: paraders portraying the three homegrown unifiers, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, march through downtown with princesses and warriors. A festival starring all three at once is unique to Nagoya, coloring the city each autumn.

Source:郷土英傑行列（名古屋まつり）名古屋まつり（名古屋市）

Correct answerErai

In Nagoya dialect, 'erai' works as an intensifier, so 'erai takai' means 'really expensive,' and it also means 'worn out,' as in 'kyo wa erai.' Because it sounds identical to the standard word for 'eminent,' it invites confusion; 'dera,' clipped from the intensifier 'do-erai,' is also widespread.

Source:名古屋弁（Wikipedia）

Correct answerToyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology

The Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology opened in 1994 on the birthplace of the Toyota group, the former Toyoda spinning works tied to founder Sakichi Toyoda. Its textile machinery and automobile pavilions run real machines in motion, tracing the group's technological journey.

Source:トヨタ産業技術記念館（名古屋コンシェルジュ）トヨタ産業技術記念館（Wikipedia）

Correct answerTokugawa-en

Tokugawa-en is a stroll garden tracing back to the Ozone residence where Mitsutomo, second lord of Owari, retired in 1695. Rebuilt as a Japanese garden in 2004 after wartime destruction, it forms, together with the adjacent Tokugawa Art Museum, a compact enclave of daimyo culture.

Source:徳川園について（徳川園）

Correct answerKomeda's Coffee

Komeda's Coffee began in 1968 in Nagoya's Nishi Ward and carried the city's linger-as-long-as-you-like kissaten culture across Japan with its roomy seats and generous hospitality. Its signature Shironoir, a warm Danish pastry crowned with cold soft-serve, debuted in 1977.

Source:グループ沿革（コメダホールディングス）

Correct answerMaru-hachi (figure-eight in a circle)

The 'maru-hachi,' a figure eight stylized inside a circle, is Nagoya's municipal emblem. It is said to derive from a mark used by the Owari Tokugawa family and was adopted in 1907. It appears everywhere in daily life around the city, from city buses and household-waste collection signs to manhole covers.

Source:ご存じですか?八マーク（名古屋市）

Correct answerTokugawa Muneharu

Tokugawa Muneharu, seventh lord of Owari, answered the austerity of Shogun Yoshimune's Kyoho Reforms with deregulation and encouragement of spending, licensing theaters and festivals that set Nagoya buzzing. The shogunate forced him into confinement, yet his rule is remembered as the seed of Nagoya's flourishing merchant and performing culture.

Source:徳川宗春とは（コトバンク）

Correct answerKano school

The Honmaru Palace's wall and screen paintings were executed by Kano school masters such as Sadanobu and Tanyu, with themes changing room by room. In all, 1,047 panels including 700 ceiling paintings are Important Cultural Properties; removed before the air raids, they survived and guided the palace's reconstruction.

Source:本丸御殿障壁画（名古屋城公式ウェブサイト）

Correct answerOkehazama

At Okehazama in 1560, Oda Nobunaga routed the far larger army of Imagawa Yoshimoto. The battlefield is held to straddle Nagoya's Midori Ward and neighboring Toyoake, and Okehazama Battlefield Park in Midori Ward has statues of both commanders and Yoshimoto's grave marker. The victory launched Nobunaga's rise.

Source:桶狭間古戦場公園（名古屋コンシェルジュ）

Correct answerGokiso

Gokiso is a Showa Ward place name whose reading trips up outsiders. The accepted origin is that this was shrine land of Atsuta Jingu, charged with supplying the earthenware vessels, goki, used in its rituals. An official attempt to read it 'Gokisho' never took hold and was later reversed.

Source:御器所（Wikipedia）

Correct answerIrinaka

Irinaka, in Showa Ward, uses 杁, a character coined in Owari for the sluice gates of irrigation ponds, and the name is said to recall a sluice that once stood here. The Tsurumai Line station renders it in hiragana, the only Nagoya subway station written without kanji.

Source:いりなか駅（Wikipedia）

Correct answerArimatsu-Narumi shibori

Arimatsu-Narumi shibori is cotton tie-dyeing that flourished from the early Edo period along the Tokaido at Arimatsu and Narumi. Sold to travelers as tenugui and yukata and pictured by Hiroshige, it counts more than a hundred techniques and in 1975 became Aichi's first nationally designated traditional craft.

Source:有松・鳴海絞（名古屋市）

Correct answerKato Kiyomasa

The Kiyomasa Stone, near the Honmaru's east gate, is the largest stone in the castle walls, roughly ten tons with a face the size of eight tatami mats. Legend credits master castle-builder Kato Kiyomasa with hauling it, but this section of wall was Kuroda Nagamasa's assignment, so the tale remains a tale.

Source:石垣・清正石（名古屋城公式ウェブサイト）

Correct answerHisaya-odori Park

Hisaya-odori Park runs through central Sakae along the 100-meter-wide boulevard laid out in postwar reconstruction. The TV Tower is its axis and Oasis 21's water-filled 'Spaceship Aqua' floats beside it; a 2020 redevelopment rewove its lawns and shops into a downtown commons.

Source:久屋大通公園（Aichi Now）

Correct answerShirotori Garden

Shirotori Garden, at about 3.7 hectares, is among the largest stroll gardens in Nagoya. Its theme is the story of water: a mound cast as Mount Ontake feeds a stream standing in for the Kiso River, which empties into a pond evoking Ise Bay, beside the sukiya-style Seiha-tei teahouse.

Source:白鳥庭園（名古屋コンシェルジュ）

Correct answerBean miso

Dote-ni slow-simmers pork offal or beef tendon in bean miso, hatcho miso among them, with mirin. The name comes from the old practice of banking miso like a levee, or dote, around the pan's rim. A staple of izakaya and street stalls, it also doubles as a dip for kushikatsu.

Source:なごやめし22選（なごやめし公式サイト）

Correct answerSweet potato

Oni manju is a homestyle sweet of the Tokai region: diced sweet potato folded into a flour-and-sugar batter and steamed. Its craggy look, like an ogre's horns or iron club, gave it the name. It spread as a rice substitute in the lean war years and remains a wagashi-shop staple.

Source:鬼まんじゅう 愛知県（うちの郷土料理・農林水産省）

Correct answerMeiko Line

The Meiko Line is a six-kilometer subway route between Kanayama and Nagoya Port, formally part of Line 2. Most trains run through onto the Meijo Line toward Ozone at Kanayama, and the Nagoya Port terminus serves as the gateway to the Garden Pier waterfront district.

Source:名古屋市営地下鉄名港線（Wikipedia）

Correct answerMiyashige daikon

The Miyashige daikon, native to the Miyashige area of present-day Kiyosu near Nagoya, is one of Aichi's designated heritage vegetables. Prized for its sweetness, it is regarded as the ancestor of the green-shouldered aokubi daikon varieties that dominate Japanese markets, and local growers keep the line alive.

Source:あいちの伝統野菜（愛知県）宮重大根（Wikipedia）

Correct answerBattle of Okehazama → Kiyosu-goshi → Completion of the Nagoya TV Tower → Start of Meijo Line loop service

The Battle of Okehazama came in 1560, the Kiyosu-goshi relocation around 1610, the Nagoya TV Tower's completion in 1954, and the start of Meijo Line loop service in 2004, a sequence tracing Nagoya from Sengoku battlefield to castle town, postwar rebirth, and a completed subway ring.

Source:年表（名古屋城公式ウェブサイト）当タワーの歴史（中部電力 MIRAI TOWER）名古屋市営地下鉄名城線（Wikipedia）

Correct answerAround 1612

The keep of Nagoya Castle was completed around 1612, built by nationwide levy with Kato Kiyomasa among those raising its stone base. One of the largest keeps ever erected, it gleamed with golden shachihoko until it burned in the 1945 air raids; a steel-and-concrete reconstruction rose in 1959.

Source:年表（名古屋城公式ウェブサイト）