Comments log

This is a log of comments.

08:50, 10 September 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Ichijodani Castle Town (Yessir!)
08:48, 10 September 2023 Eric talk contribs posted a new comment on Ichijodani Castle Town (Let's say it's on a similar scale to the Machu Pichu of Japan! So does the answer to what is Ichijodani-jo satisfy you?)
08:48, 10 September 2023 Eric talk contribs deleted comment #2638 on Ichijodani Castle Town
08:48, 10 September 2023 Eric talk contribs posted a new comment on Ichijodani Castle Town (not unlike the Machu Pichu of Japan! ;) So does the answer to what is Ichijodani-jo satisfy you?)
20:32, 9 September 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Sasao Castle (My impressions, having been able to enter into the integral baileys: Sasao-toride is an earthworks fortification ruin in Kobuchizawa Township, Hokuto Municipality. The locality is called Shimosasō. This is a yamajiro (mountaintop castle) site, but is easy to get to as it sits on a ridge extending from a plateau with vehicle access. The fort consisted of baileys surrounded by dorui (earthen ramparts) and separated by horikiri (trenches). The mountainsides were further fortified with tatebori...)
20:28, 9 September 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Sasao Castle (I've added some pictures of the (interiors of) the first and second bailey, as well as their ramparts and the dividing horikiri. Also added co-ordinates for new pictures. Begging pardon of the webmaster, but i also swapped out the highlight image, swapping the picture of the parking area, for an updated picture showing the main bailey.)
19:53, 9 September 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Bitchu Matsuyama Castle (There's lots of ruins at 'at the back' that people miss, so check them out the next time you go.)
17:10, 9 September 2023 Matthew Ward talk contribs posted a new comment on Fukuchiyama Castle (I have been to this castle twice, both times because my son (very interested in Japanese history) requested to visit it. We watched 'Kirin ga Kuru' extensively during the pandemic, so he was on an Akechi Mitsuhide kick. Anyway, as said above and below, it's a nice little castle. The main keep and attached turret are some of the better concrete reconstructions I've been to, with more atmosphere than most (due to a lot of wood trimming and a decent museum). One interesting detail about it...)
16:54, 9 September 2023 Matthew Ward talk contribs posted a new comment on Bitchu Matsuyama Castle (I really need to visit this one again. I went there about 15 years ago, I think (maybe even longer ago), and what I remember most is that by the time I got to the mountaintop, I was absolutely drenched in sweat. It's a stiff and hot walk in the summer! As for the castle, I remember it being quite nice and authentic, but slightly underwhelming due to its small size. The ishigaki were probably the best part. But now, with my ability to appreciate Japanese castles having been enhanced a g...)
16:44, 9 September 2023 Matthew Ward talk contribs posted a new comment on Ichijodani Castle (I'll give this a 5. Not necessarily a 5 as a castle per se, but as a historical site, it's totally unique and beautifully restored. Really, there is nothing else quite like it in Japan.)
12:13, 9 September 2023 Matthew Ward talk contribs posted a new comment on Ichijodani Castle Town (Fantastic article!)
11:58, 9 September 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Ichijodani Castle (This is now one of the top profiles on the site. Great work! Guess I'm going back here.)
10:38, 9 September 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Ichijodani Castle Town (Probably needs a volcano to be compared to Pompeii, but it's a powerful sentiment.)
15:19, 6 September 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Nishio Castle (The new yagura seems to have been done a bit on the cheap. The black paint (used in place of lacquer?) is already fading to brown. Combined with the concrete in the “restored” stone platform of the tower, and the (for legal reasons) still uncompleted final floor which means that tower can’t be entered, a second viewing proved a little disappointing.)
15:18, 6 September 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Nishiohhira Jin'ya (Nishiôhara-jin’ya is a partially reconstructed jin’ya site with a gate and walls. The inside of the compound is now a park and a small shrine to Inari.)
15:17, 6 September 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Oka Castle (Mikawa) (The ruins of Okajō in the Oka Township of Okazaki Municipality feature dorui (earthen ramparts) and karabori (dry moats), but the remains of the structure are only partial, and the layout and orientation of this square-shaped fort is mostly deduced from a prominent corner segment of its walls which still remain. The moat segment continues on but much shallower a little way into the bamboo grove. It is thought that the northern perimeter of the castle was protected by the river terrace. The fo...)
23:00, 4 September 2023 RaymondW talk contribs posted a new comment on Awaya Yakata (@ART. I’m glad you have enjoyed the gusuku profiles that I have added to JCastle. When I have some free time, I’ll add a few more gusuku profiles. There are still gusukus that I have visited not yet up on JCastle.)
22:56, 4 September 2023 RaymondW talk contribs posted a new comment on Sasayama Castle (Matthew, it’s good to hear that you’ve rated this castle quite highly. It’s an enjoyable castle to visit with plenty of ishigaki, quite a few kokuins, a rebuilt palace, and a few samurai residences near the castle. There are two extant umadashi left at Sasayama Castle, a southern one and an eastern one. The eastern one is much better maintained compared to the southern one, well at least it was on my visits in 2008 and 2013. The Ote Umadashi has been demolished and the moat surrounding it f...)
21:50, 2 September 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Sasayama Castle (Ohte umadashi is the main gate with a barbican-like structure attached. Sasayama had several umadashi (barbicans). The ruins of one remain fairly intact. You'll likely miss it unless walking around the whole castle perimeter. I'd have to check but i think the extant umadashi is not the ohte one, so perhaps they will reconstruct another umadashi somewhere else. That'd be swell.)
17:02, 2 September 2023 Matthew Ward talk contribs posted a new comment on Sasayama Castle (I visited Sasayama Castle early last year... it was another situation where my wife and son suddenly told me that they were visiting a particular castle and would I like to come along. I didn't know anything about it at the time, but I'm glad I went! I think the description of it above is really good: it's a really solid, no-nonsense, imposing, brooding presense that strikes me as being very no-frills and practical. A castle for protection, and not for showing off. If I understand correc...)
15:39, 1 September 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Okazaki Castle (Update: photography is now allowed in the keep museum : ))
15:36, 31 August 2023 122.211.145.154 talk posted a new comment on Sonobe Castle (Yeah, I did! I think I'm up to 48 separate castles visited... not too many compared to a lot of the contributors on this page. I tend to visit the same castles repeatedly, but I need to try adding some new ones. Too bad that Yaga Castle has nothing left of it, but it's nice that it does have a castle turret, albeit unrelated, on the site.)
15:25, 31 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Marune Fort (Marune-toride is an earthworks fort ruin in the Ôdaka neighbourhood of Midori Ward, Nagoya City. I came here after visiting Washizu-toride. I liked this site more. There is clear terracing in a belt-like fashion beneath the top of the hill, which does impress one as an obikuruwa (belt bailey). There is a marker for the castle at the top of the hill where presumably the main bailey was. Toward the rear of the site there are what look like some earthworks which could’ve constituted a horikiri (...)
15:25, 31 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Washizu Fort (Washizu-toride is an earthworks fort ruin in the Ôdaka neighbourhood of Midori Ward, Nagoya City. It is interesting and a little mysterious, and offers suggestions of remains which never fully come into focus. There appears to be trenches at the bottom of the castle mount, and terracing of the hillside with remains of dorui (earthen ramparts). These remains are easy to miss unless one is looking carefully. Since terracing can be accounted for with cultivation, and long trenches of this nature...)
13:11, 31 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Sonobe Castle (* Yaga Castle (Tanba))
13:09, 31 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Sonobe Castle (Well done for also making it to the relocated yagura! You get to add Yagi Castle to your castle-visit list as a bonus : ))
11:15, 31 August 2023 Matthew Ward talk contribs posted a new comment on Sonobe Castle (I enjoyed visiting Sonobe Castle the other day. I first went to the original buildings pictured above, and spent a while walking around, inspecting them and photographing them. I think that school may have been in session, but no-one seemed to mind my walking around. Perhaps they are used to odd castle buffs showing up! Anyway, I think that the complex of the turret gate, guardhouse, turret, ishigaki and plaster walls is a neat little relic of the castle, and well-worth visiting for cas...)
10:43, 31 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Amagasaki Castle ("It's more of a museum about Amagasaki Castle than it is the actual Amagasaki Castle." That's a great way to put it.)
20:47, 30 August 2023 Matthew Ward talk contribs posted a new comment on Amagasaki Castle (I went to Amagasaki Castle today. I had low expectations that were pretty much met. It's a worthwhile site if you don't expect much authenticity. It's more of a museum about Amagasaki Castle than it is the actual Amagasaki Castle. It IS built in one of the former baileys of Amagasaki Castle, and the main keep does appear to be a fairly accurate reconstruction of the original, in terms of outward appearance. And the museum inside isn't bad, though it kind of reinforces my feeling that thi...)
13:56, 28 August 2023 Eric talk contribs deleted comment #2612 on Nijo Castle
09:18, 28 August 2023 203.51.15.17 talk posted a new comment on Nijo Castle (hi)
01:44, 26 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Kiyosu Castle (Have added more pictures with labels and co-ordinates. Newer pictures of main keep and bridge are the ones with co-ordinates attached.)
13:10, 24 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Kiyosu Castle (They do have an original segment of ishigaki on the other side of the river from the mogi tenshu. I don't know if that was a more recent addition / excavation. Maybe I could add it to the above gallery since it's a bit sparse.)
15:02, 23 August 2023 Matthew Ward talk contribs posted a new comment on Kiyosu Castle (I visited this castle a few years ago--my son is quite interested in the Warring States Period, and as explained above, Kiyosu Castle has significant connections to the people and events of that time. That said, it's pretty much a total mogi, with the main keep modeled after that of Inuyama Castle, as there aren't any records of what the main keep actually looked like. If I understand right, the main keep also isn't where it originally was. Still, it's a quite attractive little castle, w...)
17:42, 20 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Awaya Yakata (@RaymondW. I'm glad we can both agree that it's garbled, fluffy nonsense, but it's also the most academic clause I've wrote on this site for that reason, haha. As for submitting substandard assingments, I think that adequately describes my submissions to this site. If you would like to contribute academically cited, better researched profiles, I invite you to do so. You visited this site but chose not to make a profile for it. So I did. I'd love to see more from you since you're so knowledgea...)
16:03, 20 August 2023 RaymondW talk contribs posted a new comment on Awaya Yakata (@Eric, there probably is no hard and fast rule about what is one single site or two separate sites for a castle + yakata combination, but if an established castle scholar with a long list of publications and a specialist in a particular region’s castles has drawn a conclusion about a castle site, I will go with his or her informed opinion rather than what’s in blogs unless it is a blog run by a castle scholar (and the information is supported by their research.) Hiroki’s website is magnifice...)
15:49, 20 August 2023 RaymondW talk contribs posted a new comment on Awaya Yakata (@ART. Yes, that opening sentence of yours in the Kuniyoshi Castle Visit Notes certainly sound like “garbled fluffy nonsense”. I had interpreted that opening sentence to mean that you were trying to say that Kuniyoshi Castle with all its baileys / ruins on this mountain is one fortress site. In Saeki Tetsuya’s books such as 若狭中世城郭図面集 I, he mentions there is archaeological evidence (pottery / tiles / nails) that indicates the Awaya Yakata dates from the middle of the 16th century to the early...)
13:19, 17 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Awaya Yakata (*kido)
13:18, 17 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Awaya Yakata (I tend to aggregate from various sources and try to determine a consensus, what is divergent, and then give my own opinion after visiting. I am under no illusion that my travelogueing is anything approaching academic. A website's format does probably determine how sites are listed even if they're not really disparate. As for personal tallies, that rests with the conscience of the castle explorer! In this case it would be perfectly reasonable to consider the yakata and yamajiro as a single, co...)
12:31, 17 August 2023 Eric talk contribs posted a new comment on Awaya Yakata (Well, this has turned into an interesting conversation! I apologize that I'm not that familiar with this castle and do not have time to look into it right now (TBH my main books put the 2 together). I think it may be challenging to make any hard and fast rules for this sort of thing. The key is to make an informed opinion from various sources, that you are satisifed with and you can justify. I am trying to be more academic and informed in my work than some bloggers out there. I typically onl...)
20:25, 16 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Shibata Castle (On my second visit to Shibatajō I entered the castle’s main bailey for the first time. That’s an odd thing to say, right? I don’t think I’ve somehow not visited the main bailey at any other major Edo period castle when first visiting. But Shibatajō actually shares its territory now with a jieitai army base, and the inner bailey isn’t always open; I think it’s closed in winter. Anyway, it was open this time, so I got to go in the main bailey and all of the structures excepting the main keep wh...)
08:11, 16 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Awaya Yakata (Here's that comment again, but better formatted : ) ‘Kuniyoshijō can refer to a multispatial, multilayered historic site centred on the ruins of the medieval mountaintop castle of Kuniyoshijō.’ You mean here? Yes. I wrote that because I was trying to get to grips with the site conceptually. Even though I read it back and thought it sounded like garbled, fluffy nonsense. It could be said about any castle. But the area was used militarily in some capacity all the way up until the Meiji perio...)
08:10, 16 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Awaya Yakata (＠RaymondW ‘Kuniyoshijō can refer to a multispatial, multilayered historic site centred on the ruins of the medieval mountaintop castle of Kuniyoshijō.’ You mean here? Yes. I wrote that because I was trying to get to grips with the site conceptually. Even though I read it back and thought it sounded like garbled, fluffy nonsense. It could be said about any castle. But the area was used militarily in some capacity all the way up until the Meiji period, with the precincts of various institutions...)
07:35, 16 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Kuniyoshi Castle (Thanks for the comment and clarifications. In hindsight the timing of my trip to Wakasa was a little suspect, and i'd certainly relish coming back here when there's no snow to have a more exhaustive look at all of the ruins. Kuniyoshi was one of the main reasons i wanted to get down here, even though in terms of castle ruins exploration i actually ended up enjoying Nochiseyama more.)
22:04, 15 August 2023 RaymondW talk contribs posted a new comment on Mochizuki Castle (Koka) (@Eric. Good to see that the wayward samurai residence photos have been put in the right places. @ART. Not all small castles in Koga have karabori around their baileys. There is a karabori around the massive earthen rampart at Mochizuki Castle, but it’s very shallow when compared to the height of the dorui as Eric has mentioned. The karabori is more akin to a slightly sunken well-worn path between baileys rather than a deep defensive ditch.)
21:58, 15 August 2023 RaymondW talk contribs posted a new comment on Awaya Yakata (This lord’s residence, an integral part of Kuniyoshi Castle at the base of the mountain is a must-visit part of this castle ruin. There is a fair bit of intact ishigaki here, more than up on top of the mountain. They are also of a more advanced ishigaki style with bigger blocks of stone than what you can see up at the mountaintop castle. For my own personal castle tally, I have counted Kuniyoshi Castle with Awaya Yakata as one single site as they are part of the same castle complex with the e...)
21:49, 15 August 2023 RaymondW talk contribs posted a new comment on Kuniyoshi Castle (It’s good to see this informative castle profile up on JCastle. Judging from the photos, it looks like not much has changed since this yamajiro made it to the “Next Top 100 Castle” list. This is a good castle to visit in Fukui Prefecture with many features that Japanese castle fans love to see. ART has done a good job of listing them in the profile here. For castle fans who visit this castle, it is worthwhile making sure you have enough time to visit all the parts of this castle properly. I s...)
17:24, 6 August 2023 Eric talk contribs deleted comment #883 on Ichijodani Castle
20:51, 5 August 2023 ART talk contribs posted a new comment on Mochizuki Castle (Koka) (Oh, okay. Sounds like an interesting site. Shinobikonjau naa...)
19:37, 5 August 2023 Eric talk contribs posted a new comment on Mochizuki Castle (Koka) (Fixed now. Thanks guys!! @ART - yes there are Karabori but not as much as you might expect given the size of dorui. I think it is must be partially from leveling the areas.)