The most potent spirit at Kanda Shrine belongs to Taira no Masakado, a tenth-century warlord who led a massive insurrection against the Heian government and declared himself the "New Emperor." His rebellion ended in 940 AD when Fujiwara no Hidesato defeated and decapitated him. Masakado's severed head was carried to the Shibasaki area in a wooden bucket and buried on a low hill near where the shrine stands today. Locals who admired his defiance, and who feared his curse in equal measure, enshrined his spirit at Kanda. Legend holds that when the shrine fell into disrepair, Masakado's furious ghost unleashed natural disasters and plagues on the surrounding district. Even Tokugawa Ieyasu, the most powerful shogun in Japanese history, reportedly felt uneasy having his castle so close to such a volatile spirit and ordered the shrine moved to its current location in 1616.

Kanda Shrine has occupied three different sites across its long history. It began near modern Otemachi, was moved in 1603 to accommodate the expansion of Edo Castle, then shifted again in 1616 to a small hill near Akihabara. The current structure owes its survival to a pragmatic decision made after the devastating 1923 Great Kanto earthquake reduced it to rubble. When the shrine was rebuilt in 1934, the builders chose reinforced concrete rather than traditional wood. That choice proved prescient: during the firebombing of Tokyo in World War II, wooden temples and shrines across the city burned to ash, but Kanda Shrine's concrete bones held. The two-story main gate, Zuishin-mon, was reconstructed in 1995 using traditional cypress wood and the elegant irimoya roof style, restoring some of the shrine's historical character to its earthquake-proof frame.

Three kami dwell within Kanda Shrine: Daikokuten and Ebisu, both members of the Seven Gods of Fortune, and the ever-volatile Taira no Masakado. The presence of two fortune gods makes the shrine a magnet for businessmen and entrepreneurs who come to pray for wealth and success. Masakado's inclusion has been more contentious. During the Meiji period, Emperor Meiji faced pressure to elevate Kanda Shrine to imperial status but balked at honoring a figure who had once declared himself a rival emperor. The compromise was to quietly remove Masakado's spirit from the shrine. It did not stick. After the Second World War, popular demand brought Masakado back, his rebel spirit proving impossible to exile permanently. The Kanda Matsuri, one of Tokyo's three great Shinto festivals, began in 1600 when Tokugawa Ieyasu held a celebration at the shrine after his decisive victory at the Battle of Sekigahara. In the Edo period, the festival's elaborate mikoshi processions paraded through the streets and into Edo Castle itself. Today it is held around May 15 of every odd-numbered year.

Kanda Shrine's proximity to Akihabara, Tokyo's famous electronics and anime district, has given it an unexpected second life. The shrine sells IT Safety talismans, omamori specifically designed to ward off computer viruses, hardware failures, and data corruption. The pairing feels natural in a culture that has always understood technology and tradition as compatible rather than competing forces. In 2015, the shrine leaned into its pop-culture connections by offering collaboration ema and merchandise tied to the Love Live! School Idol Project anime franchise, which prominently features Kanda Shrine in its storyline. The shrine's vermilion walls and gold-lacquered interiors now appear in selfies alongside cosplayers and in anime pilgrimage guides, pulling a new generation through the same torii gate that samurai once passed through on their way to pray.