Ema in Japan: Meaning of the Wooden Wish Plaques

Walk into almost any shrine in Japan and you will hear it before you see it: a soft, wooden clatter, like wind chimes made of tiny planks. Then you find the source, a rack stuffed with hundreds of small wooden plaques, each one covered in handwriting. “Please let me pass the university entrance exam.” “Let my mother’s surgery go well.” “I want to marry Takeshi.” And, very often, a carefully drawn anime girl. These are ema, Japan’s wooden wish plaques, and they are one of the most personal things you can see at a shrine.

Ema look like a simple souvenir, but they carry more than a thousand years of history, a lot of unwritten etiquette and some surprisingly modern twists. Here is what they are, where they come from, how to write one yourself, and what happens to all those wishes afterwards.

Why a wish plaque is called “picture horse”

The word ema (絵馬) is written with two characters: e (絵), picture, and ma (馬), horse. A “picture horse” sounds random for a wish board until you know the history.

In ancient Japan, horses were considered vehicles of the gods. Wealthy people, and above all the imperial court, would donate a real horse, a shinme (sacred horse), to a shrine when they wanted to ask the kami for something important, like rain for the harvest or an end to it. A live horse was extremely expensive, so over time people started offering substitutes: first wooden or clay statues of horses, then simply a picture of a horse painted on a wooden board.

That painted board is the ancestor of today’s ema. The custom goes back to at least the 8th century, and written records mention ema offerings from the Heian period. The idea stayed the same for more than a thousand years: the horse, even a painted one, carries your wish to the god.

Today most ema no longer show a horse. You get the zodiac animal of the year, the shrine’s symbol, a local legend or a cute illustration. But many shrines still keep a few horse designs, and some even keep a real white sacred horse, or a bronze statue of one, on their grounds. When you see it, you are looking at the oldest form of the ema.

Small ema and giant ema

There are two kinds. Koema (small ema) are the ones you buy and write on, usually about the size of a postcard. Oema (large ema) are big painted boards donated by wealthy merchants, artists or communities, sometimes centuries old, which hang in special halls called emado. Old oema can be real works of art, showing ships, battles, kabuki actors or scenes of daily life from the Edo period. If a shrine has an emado, take a look. It is like a free museum most tourists walk past.

What people wish for (and how the shrine decides the topic)

You can write any wish on an ema, but shrines specialise, and the wishes on their racks follow the god they enshrine. Reading a rack (without photographing people’s names, more on that below) tells you a lot about what a shrine is famous for.

• Exams and studies: shrines dedicated to Tenjin, the deified scholar Sugawara no Michizane, are packed with ema from students in January and February, entrance exam season. In Tokyo, Yushima Tenjin is the classic one.
• Love and marriage: many shrines are known for en-musubi, “tying the knot” of fate. Their ema are often heart-shaped or pink, and the wishes range from “find a good partner” to very specific names.
• Safe childbirth and children: shrines connected to pregnancy and children have ema for a safe delivery and healthy kids.
• Business and success: Inari shrines, with their red torii and fox statues, are linked to prosperity and business.
• Health and recovery: almost every shrine sees wishes for health, recovery from illness or a good operation.
• Thank you ema: not every ema is a request. People also write ema to say thank you when a wish came true, which is considered good manners towards the kami.

Some temples have ema too. Ema are mostly a Shinto custom, but Buddhist temples adopted them long ago, and you will see them in both. A good example is Gotokuji in Tokyo, the temple of the beckoning cat, where the ema show the famous maneki-neko. I wrote about that temple in the cat temple of Japan.

Shapes, designs and the famous anime ema

The classic ema is a small rectangle with a pointed top, like a little house roof. But shrines love to get creative:

• Fox faces at some Inari shrines, where visitors draw their own fox expression on a blank face.
• Hearts at love shrines.
• Zodiac animals of the year, especially around New Year.
• Local symbols: a castle, a mountain, a famous local animal or a regional hero.

And then there is the anime ema, or itaema. The name plays on itai (painful, embarrassing), the same word used in itasha for cars covered in anime stickers. Fans decorate their ema with elaborate drawings of anime characters, sometimes so good that shrine visitors stop to look at them like an exhibition.

The most famous example is Washinomiya Shrine in Kuki, Saitama, one of the oldest shrines in the Kanto region. After it appeared in the opening of the anime Lucky Star in 2007, fans started visiting and hanging ema with drawings of the characters. Some fans kept coming back for years and drawing new ones. What started as fan pilgrimage turned into a real relationship between the shrine, the town and the fans.

In Tokyo, Kanda Myojin, the shrine that protects Akihabara, is known for collaborations with anime and for ema racks full of character art. If you are an anime fan, it is one of the best places to see how deeply pop culture and Shinto mix in modern Japan. My list of real-life anime locations in Japan has more spots like this, including the Your Name stairs at Suga Shrine.

You do not have to travel to Saitama to see fan ema, though. At Suga Shrine in Yotsuya, the shrine at the top of the famous stairs from Your Name, the racks are full of ema from anime fans and couples, written in Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean and many other languages.

How to write an ema, step by step

Writing an ema as a foreigner is completely fine. Shrines welcome it, and you do not have to be Shinto or Japanese. Here is how it works:

1. Buy one. Ema are sold at the shrine office (juyosho or shamusho), the same counter that sells omamori charms. They usually cost about 500 to 1,000 yen, sometimes more for special designs. Some smaller shrines have an honesty box instead of staff.
2. Find the blank side. One side has the picture, the other is blank. You write on the blank side.
3. Write your wish. There are no strict rules, but the traditional form is: your wish, then your name and sometimes your address (or just your city), so the kami knows who is asking. Many people write in Japanese, but English and other languages are completely fine. Big shrines like Meiji Jingu in Tokyo have racks full of wishes in dozens of languages.
4. Be specific and positive. Japanese people often phrase wishes as a vow: “I will pass the exam” or “I will do my best and pass”, rather than “please let me pass”. The idea is that the god helps those who also make an effort.
5. Use the pens at the stand. Most shrines provide markers next to the rack. Thick markers work better on wood than ballpoint pens.
6. Hang it on the rack. Tie the string to the rack (called emakake) with the others. You can also bow briefly or clap as at the main hall, but it is not required.

Privacy: the little sticker and why it matters

Because ema hang in public, some people do not want their name or address readable by everyone. Some shrines sell ema with a small privacy sticker or a fold-over cover so you can hide personal details. If yours has nothing like that, it is perfectly fine to write only your first name or initials.

It is also why you should be careful when taking photos. Photographing the ema rack as a whole is generally fine, but zooming in on individual wishes with names, addresses or very personal content is not. Imagine a stranger posting your prayer for a sick family member on Instagram. Respect the shrine’s photo rules, too. My guide to Japan etiquette for tourists covers shrine manners in more detail.

What happens to all those ema?

A busy shrine collects tens of thousands of ema a year, so where do they go? The ema stay on the rack for a while, often until the next New Year or a fixed ceremony. Then the priests collect them and burn them in a purification ritual, together with old omamori charms and New Year decorations. Many places do this in a ceremony called otakiage or, in some regions, at the dondo-yaki fires in January.

The idea is that the smoke carries the wishes upward, and the objects, which have done their job, are returned to the gods in a respectful way rather than thrown away. That is also why you should never take an ema from the rack that is not yours.

Can you take your own ema home instead of hanging it? Yes. Some people do, especially if it has a beautiful design or is a gift. It is not considered rude. Many people buy one to hang and one to keep as a souvenir.

Best times to see ema racks at their fullest

• New Year (hatsumode): from 1 January for the first days of the year, shrines are packed and the racks fill up with new year wishes. Crowded, but full of atmosphere.
• Exam season, January and February: Tenjin shrines overflow with student ema. It is touching to read them (from a respectful distance).
• Before big events: sports tournaments, elections, even big anime events can trigger waves of themed ema at related shrines.
• Ordinary weekdays: if you want to write your own ema calmly, go on a weekday morning. Quiet, no queue at the office, and often a priest sweeping the grounds.

If you visit during a shrine wedding season, you might also see a traditional Shinto wedding procession crossing the shrine grounds. More on that in Harajuku to Shibuya with a Meiji Shrine wedding.

I have written several ema over the years, but one stands out. During one of my first dates with the woman who would later become my fiancée, we visited Suga Shrine together, wrote our names on an ema and asked for a happy future. When we returned to the same shrine two and a half years later, in the snow, that wish felt more real than ever. That is the thing about ema: they look like a cheap wooden souvenir, but the moment you write one, it becomes a small promise.

Ema, omamori and omikuji: what is the difference?

Shrines sell three things that visitors often mix up:

In short: the ema is your message to the god, the omamori is the god’s protection you take with you, and the omikuji is the god’s answer about your luck. How to pray and what to buy also differs a little between the two kinds of sites, as I explain in my guide to shrines vs temples in Japan. For more about the spiritual side of Japan and how Shinto and Buddhism mix in daily life, see my Japan culture guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Next time you hear that wooden clatter at a shrine, stop for a minute and look. Those plaques are a snapshot of what people in Japan hope for right now. If you want to see a shrine with a view to match, try the rooftop shrine at Ginza Six, or head to Hie Shrine in Takayama.