Eric Obershaw
Contact me
Corporate Librarian
Tokyo, Japan

The information supplied about each castle was taken from my books, tourist brochures, castle websites, and signs at the individual castles. In writing the histories I have tried to verify the names, dates and places in two or more of these sources. In cases where I found conflicting dates or persons I used my own judgement. When newer castles were built on top of older castles or castles underwent massive renovations it is sometimes ambiguous which person and date to chose as the founder and year. If you find any discrepancies in the information anywhere on this site please let me know and I will correct it promptly.

All photographs are my own unless otherwise specified. Please contact me if you wish to use any of them or if you have any questions or comments on this site. If you have a site that deals with Japanese castles please let me know. I will add it to my links page.

I became interested in Japanese castles when I was a high school exchange student to Tokyo in 1992. I went with my host family to visit my host father's birthplace of Matsumoto (Nagano Prefecture) where I saw Matsumoto castle. During that summer I also visited castles in Nagoya, Inuyama and Gifu. I visited more castles as a college exchange student to Nagoya in 1995-1996 and saw even more of them while I was working in Fukushima (1997-1999). Now that I am back in Japan (2001- ?) I'm regularly adding new content.

My aim is to make this the most authoritative and comprehensive site available in English on Japanese castles. If you have any comments or suggestions please email me.