Rediscovering Japan

Travel (Inuyama (Aichi))

by tomizuta

The keep and the surrounding grounds of Inuyama Castle. You need to join the queue to go to the top of the keep.  

We paid our first visit to Inuyama City in Aichi Prefecture, approximately 20 kilometers north of Nagoya. Inuyama Castle is one of the five national treasure castle keeps. The other four are in Matsumoto (Nagano), Hikone (Shiga), Himeji (Hyogo) and Matsue (Shimane). The reason that there are so few national treasure castle keeps is because, after the abolition of feudal territories shortly after the Meiji Restoration, most were abandoned and dismantled. Of those that remained, some underwent too major a refurbishment to classify for a national treasure. Inuyama Castle was one interest for our visit. The second interest was Meiji-mura (Meiji village). This is an open air park museum exhibiting buildings and architecture from the Meiji era.

Pamphlet of Inuyama Castle

Castle constructions started to become popular around the 14th century. The strength of the Ashikaga military government had waned, and the local samurai chieftains were vying to defend or expand their territory. The oldest castles were built in the mountains to best defend the territory from the attack of neighboring chieftains. As gradually larger chieftains called Daimyo appeared, and Japan started the path of establishing a country wide orderly rule by a super-Daimyo, the needs for castles in the mountains declined. Nobunaga Oda, who ambitioned to unify Japan in the 16th century, built Azuchi Castle in Shiga. The altitude of Azuchi-san on top of which Azuchi Castle stood is about 200 meters above sea level. It is believed that Nobunaga lived in the castle keep on the top and his commanders towards the bottom of the mountain, from where they would hurry to go up to support Nobunaga if needed. At the bottom of the mountain, a town to house the samurais and merchant district was created, and Nobunaga encouraged free trade there. The style of Azuchi Castle was more to demonstrate the power of Nobunaga’s government than to defend the area. Only the ruins of Azuchi Castle now remain, as the castle was destroyed shortly after Nobunaga was assassinated in 1582, three years after it was completed. Inuyama Castle follows the style of Azuchi. It sits on top of a hill less than 100 meters above sea level, overlooking the township, with the River Kiso on the back.

View of River Kiso from the back of the keep gardens

We parked at the car park at the bottom of the castle and made our way up to the castle keep. There are Shinto shrines on both sides of the path to the keep. The one on the right is Haritsuna Jinja, The shrine must have been established by the 10th century, was moved elsewhere upon construction of Inuyama Castle and returned to its current place in the Meiji era. It is closely related to the Oda family that later founded Inuyama Castle.

Entrance to Haritsuna Shrine at the bottom of the hill (left) and the honden on the right on the way up to the keep (right)

The castle was founded in the first half of the 15th century. In the final stages of the clash between Hideyoshi Toyotomi and Ieyasu Tokugawa to decide the lawful successor to Nobunaga Oda, the castle played an important role because of its location in between the two power lords. You need to pay an entry fee to enter the keep and the surrounding gardens. Best if you purchase a combined ticket with Meiji-mura if you are visiting there as well. We declined from going up to the top of the keep as the queue was quite long. We went around the edges of the keep, from where you can admire the keep and look down to the River Kiso below.

There are many areas around the castle that may interest you even if you do not go up to the top of the keep. The entrance to Sankou Inari Shrine at the bottom of the hill (left) and the row of torii gates that appear on your right on your way up to the keep (right). In this shrine you can wash your money to pray that it will multiply. This is called Zeniarai.

Towns that developed in front of the castle are called JOUKA-MACHI (literary, town in front of castle). Similarly, towns that developed in front of a temple or shrine are called MONZEN-MACHI (town in front of temple or shrine gate). The JOUKA-MACHI feature has been well preserved in Honcho-doori (high street) of Inuyama.

View of Honchou-doori (high street) coming from the castle.

As I explained about the famous UDATSU in Mima, Tokushima, prominent merchants had shops facing the main roads to attract customers the most. Typically the shop was at the front and the owners lived in the back. The shops were built next to each other with very little space in between. These shops are called Machiya. We entered a Machiya, former Isobe family residence. This is a Machiya from the Edo era now purchased from the family and maintained by Inuyama City. We learned with interest that the Machiya has 57 meters of length behind the narrow shop entrance.

The living and storage area at the back of former Isobe Family Machiya was unbelievably spacious compared to the narrow shop front.

Looking up to the castle from high street, I understood how the townsfolk in the old days would have seen the castle, as a symbol of power and protection of the area.

Looking up to the castle from Honchou-doori

Having enjoyed the JOUKA-MACHI, we drove to Meiji-mura. Meiji is a GENGOU. GENGOU is something like the year of the Emperor. Since the Meiji era, there has been only one GENGOU per Emperor. In the past, Emperors could change the GENGOU in the middle of his reign. 1868 was the first year that the Emperor retook his authority to rule and is Meiji gannnen, meaning first year. He was succeeded by his son in 1912 which was Meiji 45th year. Taishou was from 1912 to 1926 and Showa from 1926 to 1989. 2016 is Heisei 28th year counting 1989 as gannnen or year 1. To this day, most official documents still use GENGOU as the primary year description. Although Hirohito is well-known in the western world as the Emperor that ruled the years including WWII, the Japanese do not refer to him as Hirohito. He is remembered as the Showa Emperor. In any event, for those born in Showa like myself, articles from the Showa gives us nostalgic memories of our childhood. We have a saying that Meiji has become distant. Meiji is the era of our grandparents. Coupled with the fact that Japan made enormous steps to catch up with the western world in the period Meiji strikes the hearts of many born in the Showa era. It is in this context that one should understand how Meiji-mura appeals to us.

Pamphlet of Meiji-mura with suggestions of tour theme

There were a couple of architecture that I had to see. I explained in my article on Tomioka how popular the Meiji era was in Japanese drama. There is a morning drama series from 8:00 to 8:15am from Monday to Saturday on NHK depicting a heroine from the Meiji/Taishou/Showa period. A recent series was about Hanako Muraoka who translated Anne of Green Gables into Japanese. We knew that some of the scenes had been shot in Meiji-mura. That was the first display we visited.

This was the school that Hanako Muraoka went to in the TV series. Actually it is the former Kitasato Institute main building built in 1915, shortly after the Meiji era. Bacteriologist Shibasaburo Kitasato (1852-1931) discovered the bacterium that causes bubonic plague.

As I wrote on Tomioka Silk Mill (world heritage). the Meiji government actively invited technocrats and scholars to import western knowledge to develop the economy and establish a modern government system. Missionaries also arrived in Japan after the ban on Christianity was lifted, and there was certainly a significant Christian influence in the Meiji era. Still we were impressed by the display of the churches mostly from the late 19th century. It was interesting to know that these were built in areas such as Kyoto, known to be a more Buddhist region.

A Church of England St. John's Church built in Kyoto in 1907 (left) and Catholic St. Francisco Xavier's Cathedral built in Kyoto in 1890

People from the west also found and opened resort areas such as Kamikouchi in Gifu and Karuizawa in Nagano. We noticed that there was a resort villa style building on display.

Villa of Mataemon Shiba in Nishinomiya Hyogo built in 1911 towards the end of Meiji.

We stopped at an ice cream parlor, which was formerly a sake brewery until it was discontinued some years back at the turn of the century. There are displays of the sake brewing area in the parlor.

Former Nakai Sake brewery built in 1870 in Kyoto, now an ice cream parlor in Meiji-mura. The maccha soft cream is worth trying.

Finally we visited the old Imperial Hotel building at the north. I recalled that I had been to the building while it stood in front of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

Imperial Hotel which was a prominent building in front of the Imperial Palace.

We learned that he open air museum opened in 1965 with 15 displays but now they have 63 displays and the museum grounds has doubled to house them. The park extends 1,100 meters north/south and 620 meters east/west, so you should be prepared to spend some time and walk a lot to really enjoy all the displays as well as the rides on the trams and buses.

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