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Thinking of traveling around Kyushu? Be sure to check out Daniel O’Grady’s wonderful Castles of Kyushu website, which combines historical information, photos, and Google maps on all the island’s significant castle sites!
[via Ampontan]
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Are any of them actually the originals or are they all post-WW2 reconstructions?
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There are no real castles left in Kyushu to my knowledge. Either ruins or reconstructions. Kyushu was one of the most heavily bombed parts of Japan. Shikoku has some real ones.
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That’s the problem with visiting Shrines/Temples/Castles in Japan: You hear it was founded in 1232 and you’re like “wow this is amazing!” and the you look at the plaque “1301 Destroyed by Fire 1512 Destroyed by Earth Quake 1945 Destroyed by allied bombing”. The Ise Shrine people were really on to something when they decided to rebuild their Shrine every 20 years….
If you go to Korea the plaques say “2000BC Founded 1592 Destroyed by the Japanese 1911 Destroyed by the Japanese” =P
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This is the issue of whether rebuilding cheapens or nullifies the historical significance of a given site. I would argue that such rebuilding, of a temple or anything, is fine so long as the new building is used for its original purpose. Hence the Ise Shrine really is very very old, even though it was built only a few years ago. But post-war concrete castles are just Disneyland fakes.
The classic example in Japan is the Kinkakuji. Many people are very disappointed to learn that the current building dates from the 1950s. However, it is still a holy site, as it was since shortly after it was built, so in that sense, it’s just as historic as if it was rebuilt in the 1850s or 1750s. But conversely, for example, the massive Great Hall of the Higashi Honganji in Kyoto is not a National Treasure, and one important reason for that is its relatively young age (early Meiji reconstruction).
It’s a difficult issue, but if it’s used for its original purpose then I don’t have a lot of problems with reconstruction.
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Kumamoto Castle is probably the most impressive in Kyushu, but yeah, the rest are mostly ruins and a few stones. Even in the rest of Japan, there are only 12 original castles left (Matsuyama’s barely qualifying for the term “original”, having been completely rebuilt in the 13th century).
As far as Tsurumaru castle in Kagoshima, the reason it was never designed to intimidate or tower above the city, as we’ve seen with other Japanese castles, was mainly due to geography; at the base of Shiroyama, the town was designed in more of a semi-circle pattern rather than a complete circle. Most of the city north of Shiroyama was built after the Meiji Restoration.
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You sure you mean “13th century”? “19th century” is more like it – 1856, specifically.
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