I’ve never been into the whole castle thing myself (I’m more into Islands full of cats, and things like that), but I know there are a lot of castle buffs out there (as well as a lot of people who don’t know they’re castle buffs quite yet), so I thought I’d share this awesome website dedicated to some of Japan’s most impressive structures: Castles.
Japanese Castle Explorer
japanese-castle-explorer.com is a site that’s all about Japanese castles (duh). That being said, it’s not just any old site. It has to be one of the best Japanese castle related sites out there (are there any others, even?). It’s sort of a combination of maps, photographs, and information, all put together very nicely, though I think my favorite feature is the interactive map. I’m more of a visual big picture kind of guy, I guess.
Zoomed way out, you can see a ton of castles. To get the most out of it, though, you’ll want to zoom in.
Now there’s more map than castle, which is a good thing. He uses different images for different kinds of castle types / conditions. You can see very quickly whether or not it’s an original castle or a reconstruction, whether it’s just buildings now, or finally if it’s just ruins.
If you click on a castle on the map, more information comes up in the top right. You can get some quick facts and info on the particular castle. Want to zoom in on it and get its exact location? Hit the “Best View” button.
While the map is my favorite part of this site, there’s more info on each individual castle as well. For example, if I click “Read More” after clicking on a castle, I can see quite a bit more on the castle, its history, as well as a bunch of pictures of the castle itself. My absolute favorite thing, though, is the very Japanese-video-game-esque stats-graph thing.
Osaka castle is obviously some sort of last-boss. You’ll want to level up for a while on lesser castles before coming here.
So, if you love castles, especially Japanese ones… or even if you just have a moderate interest in visiting a castle or two in Japan at some point, definitely check out japanese-castle-explorer.com. It’s a great combination of technology, information, and photography.
Oh, what? Am I like some sort of castle or something? Because… you just laid siege to my heart.