What other travelers are saying about Samurai Museum, Shinjuku
Visiting the Samurai Museum was truly a 5-star, 10/10 experience and easily one of the highlights of my trip to Japan.
Our guide Kazuki gave an absolutely amazing tour. He was incredibly knowledgeable, engaging, and passionate, and I walked away with a whole new level of respect and understanding for samurai culture, history, and the samurai code. I genuinely left feeling inspired and far more educated than when I arrived.
Rey was also phenomenal — an incredible teacher who patiently and expertly showed us the ways of the samurai and even taught us how to gild a katana (samurai sword). The experience was hands-on, informative, and truly unforgettable.
The museum shop was amazing as well. Every employee was so friendly, patient, and helpful without being pushy. We walked out with bags full of goodies and were pleasantly surprised that we spent under $300, which even included bringing home a sword and a sword stand — such an incredible value for the quality and authenticity.
Another huge plus: the entire tour was conducted in clear, easy-to-understand English, which made everything smooth from start to finish.
I would 1000% recommend this museum to anyone visiting Tokyo. If you’re staying in Shinjuku, this is a must-visit — and if not, it’s absolutely worth making a special trip. An unforgettable experience filled with history, culture, incredible guides, and an outstanding staff.
The museum displays authentic samurai armor, helmets, and swords from the 12th to 19th centuries. You can try on replica armor for photos, watch kembu sword dance performances, and participate in katana holding sessions with staff instruction.
Most visitors spend 60 to 90 minutes at the museum. This includes time for the guided tour, interactive armor-wearing experience, sword dance performance, and browsing the exhibits.
Yes, English-speaking guides conduct all tours and explain the historical context of the exhibits. The museum specifically caters to international visitors with multilingual support.
Original artifacts are displayed behind barriers and cannot be touched. However, you can wear replica armor and hold practice katana swords during the interactive demonstrations with staff guidance.
This is a wonderful experience of the culture. Our guide Rey took time to explain to us the details of how samurai came to power and evolved through time (from Edo to Meiji to present days).
The sword experience was also wonderful, Leo was very thorough with sword techniques and helped us understand why each post is so important and connected.
Not something that would appeal to me generally, but it was a fantastic exhibit. They had an English speaking guide who made it very interesting with his knowledge. There’s even an opportunity to try on some of the Armor, and we finished with a little throwing star competition…was very interesting and entertaining
I loved this place.
You get a one houre very informative, impressive and also funny tour and see lots of cool stuff.
You can also buy cool stuff there if you want.
One great thing about it is also that when you buy a ticket it is reusable. So we got there at 1815 but performances are shown only between 1400 and 1700. So we can come here on another day and watch the performance free of charge. 👍👍👍
