Daikanjin and Daihongan operate Zenkoji together in their own ways. Where Daihongan has women priestesses, Daikanjin has men.
The priests have been at Daikanjin for generations. One famous priest was the 80th priest of the temple, who served during the Edo period (which lasted from 1603 and 1867). The year after he became the chief priest of Zenkoji, there was a terrible volcano eruption at Mt. Asama that wiped out the majority of the nearby village. The priest rushed to the scene and quickly became traumatized to find out that 477 of the 570 villagers had perished.
The priest did not leave the village after that. Instead, he stayed and mourned with the surviving villagers, chanting the Nembutsu together with them for 30 days straight. Before he left, he made sure to give each surviving member of the village a good luck charm, the same one from the story of Goemon the Thief.
A few years after the eruption came the worst famine the Edo period would experience. The chief priest was in charge of preparing the temple to make sure it was easily accessible to anyone. This was when the Gokaicho event first started-- to make sure that those suffering could feel close to the Buddha and be reassured that better times would come. This event spread the people’s belief in Zenkoji during that time.