

General Features
Kumamoto Castle was built by Kato Kiyomasa, called the god of civil engineering. The whole area of the castle is 980,000 square meters large, almost twenty-one times larger than Tokyo Dome. The circumstance is 5.8 km long. It is one of the biggest castles ever built in Japan. It is often chosen as one of the three greatest castles (along with Edo Castle and Osaka Castle).
Kumamoto Castle was thoroughly designed to deal with any attack, no matter how strong or how long. It is constructed to be impregnable.
The founder, Kato Kiyomasa
He also had the common name Toranosuke. He was and is respectfully called ”Seisho-kou” (kou is similar to Mr) by Kumamoto people. This is largely because he achieved the local development by making new rice fields and controlling the river flow against flood for the sake of his people.
He greatly helped win various battles as a subordinate samurai for Hideyoshi Toyotomi, and finally he got appointed as the lord of Higo Province, today’s Kumamto. In Korean Invasion, he was assigned to build castles and learned more about the building skills.
The Kiyomasa of the statue looks brave and daring. However, the Kiyomasa of the portrait picture drawn right after his death looks very sensitive and coward. If he was weak and much afraid of death, it makes sense why he tried to build such an unbeatable castle.


Defense Devices
Kumamoto Castle has many devises to protect itself perfectly from the enemy, which is considered to be overdoing, but this is largely due to Kato Kiyomasa’s cowardliness.
The first barrier the enemy warriors face is the entrance space called “Masugata Koguchi.” This is a kind of path space in a square shape surrounded in four directions by the walls. The walls have holes called “Sama” through which to shoot bullets or arrows. So, enemy warriors are shot from all the directions.


The next barrier is the open space called “Takenomaru,” surrounded by the high walls on which Yagura, or turrets. are lined to shoot the enemies who reach this space. It is said there used to be 66 Yagura in Kumamoto Castle.


The third barrier is the double pathway. One is to reach the dead-end. The other is to go through 6 Masugata Koguchi corners open to the shots from all the directions.
The last barrier is the gate called “Kuragari Gomon” (Passage of Darkness) leading to the main keep. This underground gate way is dark enough for the enemy warriors to go through blind. They are unprotected there.

These defensive structures of Kumamoto Castle face the south, because it is the direction to Satsuma Province, which Kato Kiyomasa feared most.
It is said that Kato Kiyomasa made a small escape tunnel at the bottom of a small castle tower in the north area.
—Shinobigaeshi: this is the iron spikes called “Shinobigaesi” on the stone walls to prevent enemies from invading. It literally means “Overturn Ninja.”

—Musyagaeshi: The stone walls of Kumamoto Castle are unique in that the slope is gentle near the ground and becomes steeper as you go up, and is called “Musha-gaeshi.The lower part of the stone wall is quite gentle, about 30 degrees, but the upper part is an almost vertical cliff. Musyagaeshi literally means “Overturn Samurai Warriors.” Kumamto Station uses the image of Musyagaeshi.


The Main Keep “Tenshukaku”
The big and main keeps of Kumamoto Castle stand side by side. Both were burnt down by the fire before the opening of the Sei-nan War in 1877, but they were rebuilt in the concrete construction in 1960. Kumamoto Earthquakes in 2018 caused some damages like the fall of the roof tiles and Shachihoko-shaped tiles from the top floor and the destruction of the stone walls of the basement room. As the symbol of the restoration project, the main keeps were top priority, and they were completely restored in 2021. The big main keep has three layers on the outside, six floors with one basement inside. From the top floor, you can enjoy the views of Kumamoto city and Aso mountains far away.
The features of the main keeps are the unique style of constructure with Chidori-hahu (triangular-shaped small roof) on the four side and Kara-hafufu (the attached small roof curved upward in the center)on the top floor. The rooms were named after the kind of the weapon storage like rifles, armors, bows and others. You can see the iron spikes called “Shinobigaesi” on the stone walls to prevent enemies from invading. There are a lot of defense devices in the castle.
Kubikake-ishi
One episode and its monument about Kumamoto Castle. A big U-shaped stone is placed in the castle. The legend says that, in building the castle, a powerful laborer, Goro Yokote carried this big type of stone by putting it around his neck (kubikake). But this is a tragedy. He was a son of the samurai, who was killed by Kiyomasa Kato. He disguised himself as a laborer to avenge his father’s death. But his scheme came to light, and he was dropped into a well while working for its construction. Then a lot of big rocks were thrown at him, but he caught all of them. Finally, sand was thrown down to bury him to death.
