Osaka Castle, or Three Lives of One Fortress.

From the series "Japan, or The Extreme Vacation of an American Retiree."

Today is the easiest story for you. For me, it's work—I still have to write the story, that's my lesson—but for you, it's absolutely not mandatory to read, because the most important thing in this story is the photographs. There are many of them, featuring just one castle.

And that's all.

But what a castle!

This isn't it yet. As we walk toward it, I'll show you the walls and the moat filled with water.

And listen closely: that's the "singing" of cicadas. On all our outings in Japan, we were accompanied by the chirping of cicadas. (We traveled in August, the hottest time, which is the time of mating activity for cicadas, hence the loudest "singing.")

Are we still walking? — It's so far from the subway station!

Hooray, we made it!

Do you like it?

I love it!

The views with this castle are just non-stop photo opportunities!

Which is exactly what I did.

So, this is Osaka, Japan.

Osaka Castle.

Everyone traveling through Japan comes here, whether by ship, train, or on foot.

In the pre-COVID year of 2017, the castle was visited by over 2.7 million people. Do you think that's a record?

In 2024, the city of Osaka received over 14 million foreign tourists! And most of them aimed to come here! (Fourteen million! I wonder how many of them actually visited the castle?)

Well, we added three visitors to this year's count, 2025.

Let me introduce our company: three teachers—myself, Meire, and Rosely (Rosely and I are actually retired)—cruising around Japan on the Celebrity Millennium. If you see thin ladies in the photos, those are my companions, and if you happen to catch someone, let's just say gently, heavier, that's me.

Oh, read this!

I came across a fascinating story about the founder of the castle. (Not kings or emperors lived in the castle; it was inhabited by shoguns—warlords, dictators.)

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598). How long ago that was...

He was born into a humble peasant family in Owari Province (now Nagoya).

He was born low-class, but became the ruler of Japan. (?!) — Absolutely unthinkable for a leader of that time!

Do you think you can work your way up now? And how many people without connections have made it? Do you know them personally? And are you one hundred percent sure no one helped them? Why weren't we so lucky? — Although I personally think I was lucky! I did what I loved, feared no one, undermined no one, and achieved everything in life myself. But I didn't become a ruler. Yet Toyotomi Hideyoshi went from peasant to ruler! His was a difficult life...

He began as the lowest-ranking servant of Oda Nobunaga (the first of Japan's great unifiers).

Due to his unattractive appearance, Toyotomi was nicknamed "Monkey."

Oh, Pushkin (the greatest Russian poet) also had the nickname "Monkey" in his Lyceum days! Friends called him a cross between a monkey and a tiger, which sounds almost Japanese. Alexander Sergeevich's appearance was... well, we love him, so let's skip it... he was lively and fidgety like a monkey, but also quick-tempered, quick in his reactions—hence, the tiger. Excuse the digression.

Toyotomi's career skyrocketed thanks to his intellect, diligence, and incredible loyalty. After Nobunaga's assassination in 1582, Toyotomi Hideyoshi quickly avenged his lord, consolidated his power, and completed the unification of Japan, ending the period of civil wars. In 1583, he began the construction of Osaka Castle, making it not just a fortress, but a grandiose symbol of his personal triumph and the center of the new, unified Japan.

And he built an impressive castle. (It was not the one you see in the photos.)

How do you prove to those around you that you, specifically you, are the ruler of Japan? Gold, gold, gold!—everywhere possible!

He built the Golden Tower. Cornices, roof tiles, and decorative elements on its exterior were covered with gold leaf. When the sun shone, the castle literally glowed for miles, blinding observers.

He created an entire Golden Teahouse where the walls, ceiling, pillars, utensils, and even the tools for the ceremony, like the kettle and cup, were covered in gold. And he invited his most powerful vassals to the tea ceremony.

The bows of his ships, also decorated with gold leaf, carried an unspoken message from Toyotomi Hideyoshi as the vessel sailed into port: "I control the wealth of Japan, and my power is eternal."

Nothing on Earth is eternal...

The castle did not stand long, lasting only from 1583 to 1615, when the forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu crushed the Toyotomi clan and completely destroyed the castle by fire. (You already know a little about Tokugawa; there is a story with some Japanese history in it; you can read it later if you haven't yet, I'll leave a link in the notes.)

Destroyed—and that's it?

No, he had to show his power: the Tokugawa Shogunate deliberately buried the original stone foundation of Toyotomi's castle and raised the castle mound to build their own and surpass the former castle, symbolizing their new authority.

They rebuilt the new castle by 1629, but the tower didn't last long either: in 1665, it was struck by lightning and burned down. The tower's foundation stood empty for 250 years.

I keep writing "destroyed, burned, annihilated"...

Did anything from that time survive?!

Did anything endure and reach us?!

These very walls that you are looking at are the walls that withstood all the earthquakes, fires, and wars.

I became curious myself.

So, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's castle (that peasant, nicknamed "Monkey") was burned. The victor, Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (he is a ruler, a military dictator, not an Emperor), simply had to build his own castle. How else would he prove his superiority?!

When the Tokugawa Shogunate built the castle in the 1620s, they didn't repair the old one—they built a new castle on the foundation of the old! They covered the ruins of the original Toyotomi castle and decided to build massive new stone walls on a higher base. This was a deliberate display of superiority. In fact, some of Hideyoshi's original stone walls are still preserved underground!

The Tokugawa Shogunate issued a decree to begin the work. Each vassal—a daimyō (there were sixty-four of them)—was assigned a specific section of the wall, a bastion, or a gate that he had to build. The number of stones (and their size), lumber, laborers, and ships that the daimyō had to provide was also specified. The daimyō was obliged to carry out the order to demonstrate his loyalty to the Shogun.

The main goal of this system was not just construction, but also the depletion of the financial and material resources of the vassals. By forcing the lords to spend enormous sums on projects like Osaka Castle (which was a symbol of Tokugawa's power), the Shogunate ensured they would not have the means to raise armies or build fortifications that could threaten central authority.

Tokugawa Ieyasu was a wise ruler—he gathered everyone for this massive construction project, and the rule of his clan in Japan was the most peaceful, lasting for 265 years... So, during Tokugawa's rule, peace was achieved through peaceful (excuse the tautology) means. And it all began with this wall.

The stones are granite. They were transported from quarries on the islands of the Inland Sea, meaning they had to travel tens and even hundreds of kilometers.

The stones weigh from 40 to 140 tons. The stones were carved in the quarries, lowered to the shore, where they were loaded onto special barges (using the tides).

After arriving at the port of Osaka, the stones were unloaded. To move them to the castle's construction site, sledges (runners) or carts were used, pulled by hundreds of workers and oxen along specially reinforced roads.

The most famous and largest stone is called Tako-ishi (literally, the "Octopus Stone"). It is located at the main gate of the citadel, the Sakuramon Gate. Its visible dimensions are approximately 5.5 meters high and 11.7 meters wide. Its visible area is about 59.43 square meters. The estimated weight of this colossal stone is 108 to 130 tons. Just to make it clearer: 108,000 to 130,000 kilograms.

I'll just remind you, lest you forget, this is not our 21st century; it's the beginning of the 17th century. There is no modern heavy machinery; there are only people, oxen, sledges, runners, levers, and ramps!

Moving a stone weighing about 100-140 tons required 3,000 to 5,000 laborers. People pulled the stone using thick ropes, employing a system of wooden rollers and logs to reduce friction.

The fortress walls were built up to twenty meters high.

The total population of Japan at that time was between 12 and 18 million. Such a construction project required 300,000 to 500,000 workers. And they had to be skilled laborers: for stone cutting, wall laying—strong, trained, not just peasants from the field. The walls were erected over nine years, from 1620 to 1629. The workers needed to be fed, shod, clothed, provided with some kind of housing... All of this had to be organized and controlled.

Speaking of control: on many of the stones used to build the walls of Osaka Castle, you can see special marks, or crests. These are identification marks or crests of the feudal lords (daimyō) who were responsible for the supply and processing of those specific stones. The crests served as accounting records to control the quantity and quality of the delivered stones, ensuring that each daimyō fulfilled his part of the work. Records of all this, including drawings and documents, have been preserved.

The total length of the stone walls and outer fortifications of Osaka Castle is about 12 kilometers (or 12,000 meters).

The width varies; in the most powerful parts of the castle, the thickness of the stone walls can reach over 17 meters. This thickness includes both the stone facing itself and the internal filling (stones and rubble).

The walls were built without the use of cement, which was unknown in Japan in the 17th century. Japanese architects intuitively understood that a rigid, mortar-bound wall would be more vulnerable to frequent earthquakes. Hard masonry would crack and crumble, so they did not use lime mortar either. The stones are very precisely fitted to each other. Manually.

Just a reminder (just a reminder!): the 17th century means various hammers, chisels, wedges... (you can Google what a chisel is; humanity still uses them today, but I'm afraid it's not you or me, my readers, so let's Google it.)

Did you notice that the walls are elegantly curved? This is the so-called "fan-shaped" construction (Ōgi-no-kōbai). The walls have a curved profile, resembling an open fan.

Due to the steep incline at the top of the wall, it was virtually impossible for enemies to climb it. The higher a person climbed, the more vertical the surface became. The walls were resistant to undermining and impact. Walls of this shape are also more resistant to earthquakes.

And in front of the walls are moats, reaching a width of ninety meters in some places. (No excavators! All of this was dug with picks, hoes, and shovels! And the soil was transported in wheelbarrows or carried in baskets!)

A national project of the century! It's no wonder the forced labor system used by the Tokugawa Shogunate to build such a massive project as Osaka Castle was called "Tēnkabushin":

where Tēnka means "The whole country" or "All under Heaven" (i.e., all of Japan under the Shogun's rule),

and Bushin means "construction work" or "public works."

Is the result impressive?

They built to last forever.

But the Tokugawa Shogunate was not eternal either; it fell in 1868, and the castle burned down during the Boshin War.

(But the walls stood firm!)

The citizens of Osaka raised money to restore the castle already in the 20th century.

And in 1931, it was built with reinforced concrete and a steel frame. Just to be sure it wouldn't burn down.

And then World War II began...

Well, you didn't guess right here!

The castle miraculously survived the intense aerial bombings of World War II, which leveled most of the surrounding army arsenal. Major repair and restoration work to restore the exterior appearance of the Edo period and modernize the interior of the castle-museum was completed in 1997.

The current main castle tower, which we visited and which you see in the photos, is the 1931 reinforced concrete reconstruction, later meticulously restored.

The modern castle-museum building is a kind of blend of styles and eras. The design is based on how the Tokugawa-era castle looked, but with some additions referencing the original Toyotomi style (for example, the abundant use of gold ornamentation, as in Hideyoshi's original castle).

I won't bore you with dates anymore.

The day was scorching hot (you're tired of reading about the heat, but it comes back to mind every time I look at the photos.)

The line for museum tickets was quite long; luckily, my companions bought tickets online.

Thank you to the museum: there were water misters on the ascent, pleasantly refreshing visitors.

It was forbidden to take photos inside the museum. The ascent to the observation deck was easy, and the reward was these views.

Let's just look at them together.

Oh, you thought it was a fish! Maybe you even added: "A goldfish! How cute!" But it's not a fish at all!!

In Japanese castles, you can often find decorative elements called Shachihoko, which are usually installed on the castle roofs. This mythical creature has the head of a tiger and the body of a fish. I'll zoom in on the picture for you; notice the SNOUT of the fish.

That's a Shachihoko! It was believed that the Shachihoko could summon rain or spew water from its mouth, thereby protecting the castle from fire (since the castles were mostly wooden). They also served as a symbol of the feudal lord's authority and status.

Listen once more... To think they can "sing" so loudly that even at the top of the tower, at a height of fifty-eight meters, it sounds like a working jackhammer! Cicadas—pure power!

This is the reflection of the city's skyscrapers in the glass covering the decorated walls of the observation deck. Well, the three of us are reflected there too.

Here it is, the observation deck at the top of the tower, offering views of the city in all four directions...

Well, our time is up; it's time to part with Osaka Castle.

Look at it once more, from the perspective of the 17th century: you arrive (on foot, on foot—we are not of noble or wealthy birth; our ancestors would have been without horses, if living in Japan in the 17th century) and amidst the shacks and small buildings (after all, workers, managers, families, and children must have lived in the surrounding area...) and among all this, the castle soars.

This castle.

And now, through the eyes of a traveler in our century: how much work is here! How divinely beautiful! How naturally it fits into the modern city, how it harmonizes with contemporary architecture!

And did you know that the height of modern buildings located immediately near Osaka Castle is significantly restricted by city building codes? This is done to preserve the historical view of the castle and ensure its dominance in the landscape.

Building tall skyscrapers is prohibited in the immediate vicinity of the castle park and moats. Buildings in this area typically have a moderate height that does not exceed the level of the main tower. (The height of the castle-museum, including the base, is 58 meters.) The further away from the castle, the less strict the restrictions become—the taller the skyscrapers rise. (Osaka has skyscrapers as high as 200–300 meters).

No, someone just needs to drag me away by the hand, or I'll find something else to talk about, and I promised you only photos...

P.S.

Clarification:

Hideyoshi was not a shōgun; he was a Kampaku (Regent) and then a Taikō (Retired Regent), having attained the highest civil titles. He could not become a shōgun as he did not belong to the Minamoto clan, but his power was absolute.

Kuno-zan Tōshō-gū Shrine, or A Short Course in Japanese History. From the series "Japan, or The Extreme Vacation of an American Retiree." (This shrine is dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu.)

https://theglobalgrandma67.blogspot.com/2025/11/kunozan-tosho-gu-shrine-japan-celebrity.html

Photograph of the "Octopus Stone" on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_stone

Girls, thank you for the wonderful trip!

Start thinking about where we'll sail next...

P.P.S.

The Global Grandma

Friday, November 21, 2025