The Yuzusame Shrine is straight ahead down the narrow street from the community spa ‘Shomen-yu’. Along the stone steps to the approach to the shrine, there is an avenue of massive large-leaved ginkgo tree, a Prefectural protected plant species, showing us their best features. There are some monuments inscribed with poems in the shrine, as Yutagawa hot springs had many visitors who were writers and artists, such as Kunio Yanagida, Santoka Taneda, Mokichi Saito, Yumeji Takehisa and Riichi Yokomitsu. Established in 650 AD, the highly formal shrine appears in Nihon sandai jitsuroku, the history book compiled in 901 AD and in Engishiki jinmyocho, the list of shrines edited in 927 AD. Deeply respected by the local aristocracy and town's people for generations, the shrine was supported by donations from Mogami Yoshiaki and the Sakai Family. The current outer shrine was completed in about 1775 and enshrines an Eleven-Headed Kannon statue. The shrine has also been known as Takikura Gongen, a flat-structured building that was common in Esoteric Buddhism Temples in the time of the mixture of Buddhism and Shinto. The main sanctuary was built in 1882 by Kenkichi Takahashi, the great master carpenter of the Shonai district. In the spring of 2002, Yoji Yamada directed the movie ‘Twilight Samurai’ based on the work of Shuhei Fujisawa, a writer who also had strong connections with Yutagawa Hot Springs. The comical kagura, the general performance of sacred Shinto music and dance, appeared in the scene at the festival attended by Tomoe, portrayed by Rie Miyazawa, and Seibei, portrayed by Hiroyuki Sanada. This kagura, called ‘yutagawa kagura’, has been performed for generations in Yutagawa since the Edo Era. It is performed on specified midsummer days or as part of a special Japanese style banquet at an inn. A monument to commemorate filming was established in the entrance of an approach to the shrine so that both writer and director can be appreciated by future generations. The stainless steel stand 150 centimeters by 90 centimeters has a copper plaque in it inscribed with: ‘To Shuhei Fujisawa for his kind heart and generosity’ signed by Mayor Yoichi Tomizuka with a group photo of 50 local people who appeared in the film as extras. [Access] From Tsuruoka Station, 20 minutes by bus on the Yutagawa Hot Springs route