Mito City Museum

Mito City Museum is a municipal museum that comprehensively introduces the history and culture of Mito associated with Tokugawa Mitsukuni (known as "Mito Kōmon"), and as a facility that houses and exhibits materials related to the samurai culture and blades of the Mito Domain (Mito Tokugawa clan), it is one of the important centers where one can learn about the Japanese sword culture of the Tokugawa and Mito regions on-site.

The Mito Tokugawa clan was one of the Three Great Houses (Gosanke), and the 9th domain lord, Tokugawa Nariaki, is particularly renowned as a spiritual pillar of the Sonno-Jōi (Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians) movement of the late Edo period. Nariaki was a domain lord who prioritized the enhancement of military preparedness and is also known as a person who devoted efforts to promoting Mito domain sword smiths (Mito swords). During Nariaki's era, the Mito domain established a domain school called "Kōdōkan" to promote education in both civil and military arts and training in martial arts for samurai, with a history of cultivating sword smiths.

Mito swords (Suifu-tō) are a regional sword-smithing tradition that received notable evaluation in the sword world from the late Edo period and Meiji era onward, and it is said that the spirit of Sonno-Jōi of the Mito domain was reflected in the blade forms and heat-treatment techniques. Mito City Museum presents the history of Mito swords and the samurai culture of the Mito domain in a context linked with Kōdōkan, Kairaku-en, and the Mito Castle site (Ninomaru ruins), making it an indispensable facility for understanding the full scope of Mito sword culture.

Mito is a special place where the Kōdōkan (a National Special Historic Site and Japan's largest domain school building), known as "Mito's Sanomaru," stands adjacent, allowing visitors to experience Nariaki's bushidō spirit and dedication to Japanese swords through both architecture and exhibition.