Legend attributes the shrine's founding to Yamato Takeru, the semi-mythical warrior prince who campaigned across eastern Japan on behalf of his father, Emperor Keiko. The story says Yamato Takeru established the shrine to pray for the end of a devastating drought. Whether the tale is historical or allegory, it anchors Ohi Shrine in the oldest layers of Japanese mythology, linking a suburban Chiba neighborhood to the age of gods and heroes. The shrine first enters the verified historical record in the Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku of 901 CE, which documents its steady promotion through the imperial court's ranking system during the mid-9th century. Starting at junior fifth rank, lower grade in 863, it rose to junior fourth rank, lower grade by 874. By the time the Engishiki compiled its Register of Deities in 927, Ohi Shrine was officially listed as a minor shrine of Shimosa Province.

At the dawn of the Edo period, Tokugawa Ieyasu himself donated land worth fifty koku to the shrine, a gesture that tied Ohi Shrine to the most powerful family in Japan. The shrine's compound grew to include Tokiwa Shrine, established in 1622 by Ieyasu's son Tokugawa Hidetada to enshrine both Yamato Takeru and his deified father. Hidetada's own son and successor, Iemitsu, later added Hidetada to the pantheon, creating a shrine within a shrine that honored warriors both mythical and historical. But the Boshin War brought catastrophe. During the Battle of Funabashi in 1868, the shrine was destroyed. The main sanctuary was rebuilt in 1873, beginning a cycle of reconstruction that continued through 1923, 1963, 1975, and 1985.

What makes Ohi Shrine remarkable today is the cluster of subsidiary shrines that fill its grounds, each with its own character and purpose. Yakumo Shrine, beside the outer sanctuary, enshrines the storm god Susanoo alongside his wife Kushinadahime and Okuninushi, the deity of nation-building. Otori Shrine honors Yamato Takeru in yet another aspect. Ame-no-Mihashira Shrine is dedicated to Japan's war dead. Perhaps most evocative is Funatama Shrine, a boat-shaped structure dedicated to Ame-no-Torifune and the Sumiyoshi sea deities. Its name, meaning 'boat spirit,' suggests it once venerated the funadama, a folk deity worshipped by fishermen and sailors as a protector of vessels. In a city whose name literally means 'boat bridge,' this maritime connection runs deep.

Funabashi is a commuter city, a place of train stations and shopping streets and apartment blocks stretching east of Tokyo. Ohi Shrine sits in this modern fabric like a thread from another era, its torii gate and gravel paths offering a pause from the hum of daily life. The most recent addition, a rebuilt Tokiwa Shrine completed in 2015 to mark the 400th anniversary of Ieyasu's death, shows that the compound continues to evolve. Whether Ohi was always Amaterasu's shrine or whether it once belonged to a nameless local sun god, the place endures as a living crossroads of mythology, history, and the quiet devotion of people who pass through its gates on ordinary afternoons, carrying extraordinary prayers.