Dogo Onsen Honkan
道後温泉本館
Does Dogo Onsen Honkan allow tattoos? Yes!
The bathhouse Matsuyama spent six years repairing around its own bathers, open again in full since July 2024 and back to the four-course system where what you pay decides which rest room you are shown to afterward. The water arrives with nothing added and nothing heated.
Matsuyama owns this bathhouse, and the city has said in public that having a tattoo is not by itself a reason it can refuse someone the use of it. Its answer came at a mayoral press conference after a resident complained about the city’s earlier reply that tattooed bathers were not banned. The operator’s bathing-manners page is long and specific, down to tying back long hair and not standing up under the shower, and it says nothing about tattoos. One thing it does rule out is covering up with clothing: the official answer on bathing garments allows only the purpose-made 入浴着 for surgical and graft scars, and refuses underwear and swimsuits.
Where it is
Matsuyama STN
Iyotetsu tram, line 5 28 min
Matsuyama Castle
Dogo-Onsen STN
Location
Dogo Onsen bathhouse ticket Admission to the Dogo Onsen bathhouse, bought ahead. Dogo Onsen Honkan is one of the three city bathhouses listed on this page. Sold on Klook.
What happens when you arrive
Check in and go to the bath. There is no seal to buy and nothing to declare.
How we know
Confirmed from the operator’s own publications, with a caveat: the statement is Matsuyama’s, made by the mayor at a recorded press conference on the city site in July 2012, and the city still owns the three baths. The current bathing-manners page at dogo.jp/manners sets out the house rules in detail and carries no tattoo clause. Neither page has been restated since the Dogo Onsen Consortium took over as designated manager.
Read on: city.matsuyama.ehime.jp/shicho/kaiken/H24/h240710.html
確かに第一印象として、恐怖や威圧感を感じることはあるかも知れませんが、入れ墨があることだけをもって、利用を禁止するという対応はできないと理解しています。
The operator’s own wording on that page. Nothing here needs showing at a desk. If anyone does ask, show them this. It is the operator’s own wording.
Best for: Bathing inside a National Important Cultural Property, in water that arrives unheated and undiluted
Open 06:00–23:00, last admission 22:30, and shut one day each December for the annual clean. Four courses: Kami-no-yu bath only 700 yen; Kami-no-yu plus the second-floor rest hall 1,300 yen; both baths plus the rest hall 2,000 yen; the third-floor Tama-no-yu private rooms from 2,500 yen. The three-bath Shuyu ticket covers Kami-no-yu here, Tsubaki-no-yu and the ground-floor bath at Asuka-no-yu for 1,440 yen and is good for two days. Soap and conditioner are in both bath halls; towels are only bundled with the upper courses. Preservation work ran from January 2019 with the building part-open, full operation resumed on 11 July 2024, and the whole job finished on 20 December 2024.
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