I had not heard about Japanese Manhole covers before we got here but they are amazing. I started noticing them and took some pictures. It is indeed a whole thing – Japan Manhole Cover Society (if you want to really dive in).

Here are some of the ones we came across:

We want to the Sewage Museum in Osaka and they of course leaned into the manhole covers as a theme.

Now, I do not want you to think they are all fun designs…here is a pretty normal one to close out.

We thought we had missed the interesting ones in Tokyo because we did not notice them while there the first time. However in our return we did not find anything. A question for another day!