Japan requires uniforms for everything. High school uniforms, of course, are the most famous, but spend any amount of time in Japan and you’ll notice that not just students but employees are also required to don clothing of uniform style and color, from train attendants to office workers to servers
Japan requires uniforms for everything. High school uniforms, of course, are the most famous, but spend any amount of time in Japan and you’ll notice that not just students but employees are also required to don clothing of uniform style and color, from train attendants to office workers to servers at fast-food restaurants. There’s even a book illustrating 150 years of Japanese uniforms.
So it’s no surprise that a squad of New Year’s security guards at Kamakura’s Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine would require a uniform to distinguish themselves from the crowd. What is surprising, though, is how popular their bright red, long, trench-coat-like uniforms became on Twitter.
They call themselves “The Redcoats”, which is appropriate since they look very much like anime versions of really cold English Redcoats. Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, which is the most prominent shrine in Kamakura, recruits new Redcoats every year, and according to their recruitment web page, they are a “special guard formed to ensure the safety and security of the many guests who visit the shrine during the New Year.
