Meiji University Museum
Now located in the basement of the new glass and steel Academy Common in the Ochanomizu district, the Meiji University Museum is an absolute must off the beaten track destination. I went there on the morning of a business day which might explain the reason why I was virtual alone in the museum during all the visit. The small place is made out of four parts with disconnected relationships. One corner is about the university history itself, another one called Commodity is a collection of traditional handicraft Japanese products displayed in a wonderfully compact fashion that shows how those artifacts from lacquer bowls to wood spatula are effectively made.
The Archeology section accumulates excavated beautiful materials from various archeological sites around. But the main dish of the museum is yet a small but haunting section named Criminal Materials that gathers mostly various torture apparatus from Japan and some from abroad. I would seriously suggest sensible persons to skip it altogether. We often bring our 8 years old to museums but I will certainly think twice before bringing a child here. The display is not spectacular on purpose but the gruesome subject makes the section pretty much disturbing. From a pure academic point of view, it is of much interest, and probably the single place in the world where one can see a French guillotine and the so called Iron maiden of Nuremberg which is absolutely scary. The museum’s shop features goods printed with a toned down version of that otherwise scary maiden emblem on tee-shirts and other artifacts. They don’t sell a miniature version of any torture tool, thankfully. There is a minimum of English explanation to make the visit easy.