Haru Inoue’s Childhood Home Deep in the Kyoto Mountains: Her Eel-Fishing Days with Grandpa Go Viral

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The story

Morning Musume.’s Haru Inoue shared a story about her grandfather catching eels with a long tube-shaped trap in the pristine river near her childhood home, sparking a lively thread on 5ch’s Hello! Project board. Her family home is said to be in a secluded mountain village in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto Prefecture, with posters noting its closeness to a river famous for the ayu (sweetfish) once praised by the legendary gourmet Rosanjin, and pointing out that the area had nothing to do with the “bubuzuke” custom of Kyoto City (a passive-aggressive local practice of offering guests tea-over-rice as a hint to leave). The thread also debated whether the eel fishing counted as poaching, with some explaining that its legality hinges on whether the local fishing cooperative holds exclusive rights to the river — all woven into good-natured chatter about Inoue’s wild-child image.

What people said

1AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:22
Out of 30 years of Morning Musume., Haru's easily the most feral, wild-child member yet.
4AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:26
Oh right, there was also that news recently about a bear rampaging just north of Haru's hometown.
5AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:28
She grew up in a kill-or-be-killed wilderness, so of course
she's got those sharp, hawk-like eyes despite being an idol.
33AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:46
Re: #5
Yeah, even the photographers from D-Maga always mention her hawk eyes.
Well, she's got that look on stage too, come to think of it.
6AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:29
I saw a Japanese giant salamander in a river out in rural Kyoto when I was a kid.
Thinking about it now, it might've just been a catfish though.
8AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:30
Forget whether it was All Japan Pro Wrestling or International Pro Wrestling,
but apparently there were wrestlers named Haru Sonoda and Mighty Inoue.
9AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:31
Giant salamanders are no joke 😳 I've seen a few regular salamanders out in the mountains of Nagano and Gifu, though.
10AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:31
Hey now, I'm from Kyoto too and we don't have countryside like that.
19AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:36
Re: #10
Haru Inoue's hometown is deeper into the mountains than Hinohara Village would be, if we're talking Tokyo terms.
11AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:32
[GIF] Here's Haru Inoue looking distinctly unimpressed eating farmed eel from Lake Hamana
15AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:34
Re: #11
Classic Haru-chan, never changes lol
28AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:42
Re: #11
That is blatantly a "this doesn't taste good" face lmao
68AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:10
Re: #11
She's probably only ever eaten genuine wild eel since she was little.
13AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:33
Is Fukuchiyama really that rural?
24AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:40
Re: #13
Putting it in Tokyo terms:
the "urban" part of Fukuchiyama, the part with things like Hachioji's Olympus Hall, is the city center,
but Haru is from a hamlet way out where Fukuchiyama basically borders on the equivalent of Hinohara Village.
14AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:34
I watched an NHK drama about Rosanjin recently,
and the river he praised as having the best ayu in Japan — the one he went out of his way to import fish from — turned out to be either Haru's home river or the one right next to it.
16AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:35
Oh really! So she and Ako-chan have the "raised on eel" thing in common too.
17AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:36
That Lake Hamana eel? A total fake, y'know (said with a playful Kyoto-dialect "dosu" flourish).
21AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:37
Re: #17
(o'3')b Shhh――――!!!!!
18AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:36
Hyoju looked down at Gon.
"Gon… so it was you… You're the one who always left me chestnuts."
Gon, lying there limp, felt a flicker of happiness. Hyoju
let his matchlock gun clatter to the ground. A thin wisp of
blue smoke was still curling up from its muzzle. (A quote from the classic Japanese children's story "Gon, the Little Fox.")
20AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:36
I want to feed her one of my huge, fatty eels.
22AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:39
Once you think of her as a native from deep in the backcountry, her insane hair volume suddenly makes sense.
23AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:39
I lived in Nantan City for about five years so I know this — black bass were already living in the rivers around there.
Used to go fishing there a lot in elementary school.
By the way, grilled black bass has white meat and is actually really good.
25AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:41
Are there a lot of delinquents there, like in Hachioji?
31AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:43
Re: #25
Don't know the details, but
I drive through that area a lot and see helmetless moped biker gangs of teenagers pretty much year-round.
36AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:47
Doesn't eel fishing count as poaching?
50AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:59
Re: #36
Depends on the area.
If the local fishing cooperative holds fishing rights there, then legally it's a no-go.
37AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:49
If Haru — who could probably flatten an Asian black bear with one hand — is the one collapsing because she can't memorize Musume.'s choreography, that routine must be seriously brutal.
38AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:50
Speaking of Kamuy (from the manga Golden Kamuy), that sharp glare of hers reminds me of early-series Kyou Kai from Kingdom.
45AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:55
It's technically part of Kyoto Prefecture on a map, sure, but it had nothing to do with Kyoto City's culture at all.
Poor her, getting hit with "bubuzuke" jokes she can't even get.
60AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:04
Re: #45
Ohh, so "bubuzuke" is only a Kyoto City thing lol, that's rough for her.
51AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:59
There used to be someone named Yui Yokoyama who played up a super-Kyoto persona, but wasn't she also from somewhere deep in the mountains?
57AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:02
Re: #51
That one's from the southern tip of Kyoto — basically Nara.
52AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:00
Japan's three great wild girls:
– Nausicaä
– Asirpa
– Haru
54AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:01
Re: #52
My bad,
not Nausicaä — I meant San from Princess Mononoke.

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

Haru Inoue is a Morning Musume. member from Fukuchiyama, Kyoto Prefecture, and has shared anecdotes about her mountain-village upbringing before, with this latest post continuing that trend. The thread’s main point of contention was whether eel fishing in the river counted as poaching — in practice, this depends on whether the local fishing cooperative for that particular river holds exclusive fishing rights, so it isn’t automatically illegal everywhere. Fukuchiyama is also a city with a stark divide between its urban center and mountainous areas; while Inoue’s family home is said to be quite far from the city center, it’s a common misconception that the whole city is “deep in the mountains.” Likewise, Kyoto’s “bubuzuke” custom is specific to the city center and isn’t shared across the entire prefecture.

※This article was compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “Haru Inoue: “Growing up, my grandfather used to catch eel in the beautiful river near our house with a long tube-shaped trap”.”

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