Originally shaped Ema at Fushimi Inari Taisha

At any Shinto shrine, you will see booths selling wooden votive plaques (ema), with various drawings and shapes, often with unique designs made especially for the shrine. Usually, these plaques have the same shape, almost rectangular, but a very few shrines have special designs: at the Fushimi Inari Taisha from Kyoto, the shrine famous for the thousands of torii, you will find ema shaped like... torii gates. Some of the most beautiful ema I have ever seen, they are used like any other votive plaques and the wishes are written on them, as you can see in today's photo: