Japanese Cities by RossC

What Kanagawa Prefecture city, Japan's 9th largest and the largest that isn't a prefectural capital, isn't home to its namesake motorcycles, but is home to a different kind of "crotch rocket" - the Kanamara Matsuri, or "Festival of the Steel Phallus"?

This one-time capital of Wakasa Province (now in Fukui Prefecture) shot to fame in 2008 thanks to the election of a famous (though unrelated) namesake, prompting hula dancing celebrations at the local temple.

Here's a curveball: the annual Japanese High School Baseball Championship, Japan's most widely-viewed sports event, is held at Koshien Stadium, in what Hyogo Prefecture city that is also the setting for "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya"?

Formerly known as Koromo, what sister city of Detroit and suburb of Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture, is now named for a multinational corporation headquartered within?

Noted for a distinctive style of shamisen playing that is heard on a namesake track in Dance Dance Revolution, what city in northwestern Aomori Prefecture lends its name to the strait dividing Honshu and Hokkaido?

Kiuchi Brewery, one of the first Japanese craft beer manufacturers (Hitachino Nest) is located in what Ibaraki Prefecture city, whose name sounds identical to the Japanese word for "inside", or "interior"?

Once a place of exile for dissidents like the monk Nichiren and the noh dramatist Zeami, what city-island in Niigata Prefecture was the site of a 17th-century gold rush, and is now the last refuge for Japanese Ibis outside mainland Asia?

Kannazuki, the tenth month of the Japanese calendar, is "the month with no gods" -- all eight million of them congregate in a shrine located in this ancient city in Shimane prefecture, whose most famous daughter was the inventor of kabuki.

Known as a naval base and a center for Japanese Catholicism, as seen in the anime series Kids on the Slope, what city in Nagasaki Prefecture is best known for the Dutch-styled theme park Huis Ten Bosch?

This resort city in Yamanashi Prefecture, at the foothills of the former Akaishi Mountains, has a name derived from a non-Asian language: both mountain range and city now share what name, alluded to in the frequent usage of the word Hütte in local mountain shelters?

A Shinto torii gate welcomes visitors to its Liberdade district; what *state* capital, visited by Crown Prince Naruhito in 2008, has the largest population (as many as one million) of Japanese or Japanese-descended people outside of Japan?

Japan was divested of 23 prefectures (part of eight modern-day nations) as a result of World War II; name ANY TWO of the former colonial-era prefectural capitals that has since served as a national capital (de jure or de facto).