✨ A "Reiwa Yakamochi" Visits Takaoka ✨ ~ Manayo Miyata's Journey to the City of Manyoshu Poetry, and Her Visit to amida coffee ~ Hello from the amida coffee team! Last month, we had a truly special guest visit our little café. Her name is Manayo Miyata — a former member of the beloved Japanese idol group Hinatazaka46, and a talented writer and novelist who has been making waves in the literary world. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ■ The "Reiwa Yakamochi" Comes to Takaoka ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Manayo Miyata has long been known for her deep and passionate love of the Manyoshu — Japan's oldest anthology of poetry, compiled over 1,300 years ago. Even during her days as an idol, she spoke openly about her admiration for ancient Japanese literature, captivating fans with her unique combination of pop culture charm and classical erudition. In 2025, she channeled that lifelong passion into her debut fiction collection, "Kirakira-shi" (きらきらし), a work entirely inspired by the world of the Manyoshu. The title itself is a word from the ancient anthology, meaning "dazzlingly radiant" — a phrase that seems to perfectly capture Miyata herself. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ■ A Special TV Program and the Spirit of Otomo no Yakamochi ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Miyata's visit to Takaoka was part of a special television program produced by Toyama TV, titled "Reiwa no Yakamochi" (令和の家持) — meaning "Yakamochi of the Reiwa Era." The program takes its name from Otomo no Yakamochi, one of the most celebrated poets of the Manyoshu, who served as the governor of Etchu Province (present-day Toyama Prefecture) and composed many of his most beloved poems here in this region. In this special program, Miyata — who shares Yakamochi's boundless love for words and nature — was filmed exploring Takaoka, sharing her heartfelt thoughts on the Manyoshu and its living connection to this ancient city. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ■ The Great Buddha of Takaoka and amida coffee: Part of a Living Story ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Our café, amida coffee, is located right beside the Great Buddha of Takaoka — one of Japan's Three Great Buddha Statues, alongside those in Nara and Kamakura. This magnificent bronze statue has stood watch over the city for centuries, and is a beloved symbol of Takaoka's rich history and culture. During the filming of the TV program, the area around the Great Buddha was chosen as a key location for capturing the essence of Takaoka's historical and cultural heritage. And as part of that journey through the city's story, Manayo Miyata stopped in at amida coffee. Her quiet elegance, intellectual warmth, and genuine respect for the history and culture of Takaoka left a deep impression on all of our staff. We are truly honored and overjoyed that our little café could be part of such a meaningful and historic moment. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ■ Come on a Pilgrimage to Takaoka! ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ To all fans of Manayo Miyata, and to everyone who loves Japanese history, literature, and culture: We warmly invite you to visit Takaoka. This is a city where the landscapes of the Manyoshu still breathe. Stone monuments engraved with ancient poems are scattered throughout the town. The beautiful Takaoka Castle Park and the scenic Ameharai Coast offer views so timeless they feel like pages from a 1,300-year-old poem. And right beside the Great Buddha — the very spot where Miyata-san stood and felt the pulse of history — you'll find amida coffee, waiting to welcome you with a warm cup and the spirit of a city that has never forgotten its roots. Come for the history. Come for the poetry. Come for the pilgrimage. And let amida coffee be your resting place along the way. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ■ "Kirakira-shi" — Manayo Miyata's Fiction Collection, Now on Sale ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Miyata's debut fiction collection "Kirakira-shi" (きらきらし), inspired by the world of the Manyoshu, is now available. If you love poetry, history, or the timeless beauty of the Japanese language, this is a book you won't want to miss. "Kirakira-shi" — a word from the Manyoshu meaning "dazzlingly radiant." A perfect title for a book — and a person — that shines so brightly. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Miyata-san, thank you so much for making the journey to Takaoka, and for gracing our café with your presence. We are proud that this small corner of our city — a city steeped in over a thousand years of history and poetry — could be part of your story, and that through your work and your love of the Manyoshu, Takaoka's story will be shared with people across Japan and around the world. From all of us at amida coffee, we will always be cheering you on. 📍 amida coffee Takaoka City, Toyama Prefecture, Japan Located right beside the Great Buddha of Takaoka #MikataMiyata #Hinatazaka46 #Kirakikarashi #Manyoshu #ReiwaYakamochi #Takaoka #GreatBuddhaofTakaoka #ToyamaTV #SacredSitePilgrimage #amidacoffee #TakaokaCafe #Japan #VisitJapan #ToyamaPrefecture