Photographed on location in Gyoda, Saitama, Japan.
The Gosankai Yagura at Oshi Castle. The tower seen today was reconstructed in 1988. citeturn874771view0
On a recent visit to Oshi Castle, we photographed its reconstructed tower, its gate, and the water around the grounds.
These are familiar subjects for a visit to a Japanese castle. Yet at Oshi, the water deserves as much attention as the architecture.
This is a place remembered for surviving an attempt to flood it into submission—a story later brought to the screen in The Floating Castle. citeturn874771view0
Looking through our photographs, one question connects the views: what made this place so difficult to take?
01. Approaching the Gate
The tower naturally draws the eye upward. Its white walls and overlapping roofs give the camera a clear subject.
The gate invites a different kind of attention. It brings the castle down to the scale of someone approaching on foot, standing before an entrance, and deciding whether to go farther.
For a visitor, it is part of the way into a historical site. Thinking about a castle under siege gives the idea of an entrance a different weight.
Who could enter? Who had to remain outside? How far could an approaching force get before the defenders saw it?
The present-day buildings cannot answer every question about the old castle. But they give us a place to begin asking.
02. Water as a Wall
Oshi Castle was established in the late fifteenth century in marshland fed by the Oshi River. Its builders made use of islands and natural levees within a much larger wetland landscape. citeturn149464view1turn874771view0
Its defenses therefore extended beyond the buildings themselves. The surrounding terrain helped make approaching the castle difficult. citeturn874771view0
That changes how we might look at the water today. In a photograph, it can seem like an attractive space around the main subject. In the history of Oshi, it belongs at the center of the picture.
The modern grounds are not an unchanged view of the sixteenth century. We cannot simply replace the visitors with soldiers and imagine that everything else was the same.
Still, the water offers a useful starting point for imagining a castle whose strength depended on the landscape around it.
03. The Siege of 1590
In 1590, during Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s campaign against the Hojo clan, forces led by Ishida Mitsunari besieged Oshi Castle. An embankment was built to support an attempt to flood the castle into surrender. citeturn674066search13
Water, already part of the castle’s defenses, was now being used against it.
But the attack did not force Oshi to fall. The castle held out and eventually surrendered after the Hojo stronghold at Odawara had capitulated. citeturn874771view2
That distinction matters. Oshi did not remain independent indefinitely, but the water attack had failed to take it. It is remembered as the “floating castle” that withstood the siege. citeturn874771view0
There is something compelling about trying to picture this from the water’s edge. A line on a map becomes a distance that people had to cross. Ground that looks unremarkable to a visitor becomes part of a military problem.
The story asks us to look outward from the tower, rather than only upward at it.
04. From History to The Floating Castle
The siege inspired the 2012 historical drama The Floating Castle, known in Japanese as Nobou no Shiro. citeturn674066search9
Its central figure is Narita Nagachika, nicknamed “Nobou” by local people. As Toyotomi forces approach, he chooses resistance. The film presents the confrontation as 500 soldiers facing an army of 20,000 led by Ishida Mitsunari. citeturn149464view2
Around those dramatic odds, the film follows Nagachika, his companions, and the people of Oshi as they confront the threat to their home. citeturn674066search9turn149464view2
Those numbers describe the film’s telling of the story; they should not be read as a complete historical count of everyone inside the castle. This is a dramatization of the siege, not a documentary record.
For someone discovering Oshi for the first time, the film can provide an introduction to the people behind the place. Visiting offers something different: the chance to set aside the screen and consider the land where the historical events unfolded.
The photographs here show that present-day place, rather than scenes from the production.
05. A Tower Rebuilt
The Gosankai Yagura standing here today did not survive the siege of 1590.
Its predecessor was dismantled during the Meiji period. The current tower was reconstructed in 1988 at a different location from the earlier building. citeturn149464view0
Knowing this changes the kind of attention we give it. We are not searching its walls for marks left by the besieging army. We are looking at a later way of making the castle visible again.
The distinction does not take away the pleasure of photographing it. Instead, it allows the building to tell its own part of the story.
The siege belongs to one period. The loss of the old tower belongs to another. Its reconstruction adds a more recent chapter.
A visit to Oshi brings those different histories into the same view.
06. Looking Again
A photograph can record a building without explaining why it matters.
Learning about Oshi adds questions to the images we brought back. Where did the old wetlands extend? How did the defenders understand the ground around them? What parts of the story are preserved in historical records, and what parts have become familiar through film?
The photographs cannot reconstruct the siege. They can, however, encourage us to look more closely at its setting.
The tower remains an appealing subject. The gate still offers a way into the grounds. But the water now holds more of our attention.
It is no longer simply something beside the castle. It is a reason to ask how the castle endured.
Photographs by Deep Japan, taken on location in Gyoda, Saitama, Japan.
Deep Japan explores Japanese culture through the places we visit and the stories behind them.
