Odawara Castle

Listen first. Gravel crunches under your shoes, pine needles shift in the breeze, and somewhere near the moat a crow calls across the water. Above you, white plaster walls rise in tiers, edged with dark roofs that curve upward at the corners. On a clear day, the air carries a faint trace of salt. The sea is closer than you might think. This is Odawara Castle, and for about a century it was one of the most powerful strongholds in eastern Japan.

To understand why a castle stands here, picture the old map. Odawara sits where the Kanto plain meets the mountains of Hakone. In the Edo period, the great Tokaido highway ran through this town, linking the imperial city of Kyoto with Edo, the city we now call Tokyo. Travellers, merchants and lords all passed this narrow gateway. Whoever held Odawara controlled the eastern door to the capital region.

The family that made this castle famous was the Later Hojo clan. They are not the same as the earlier Hojo family who ruled Japan in medieval times. They took the name for its prestige. Their founder, a warrior known as Hojo Soun, seized Odawara near the end of the fifteenth century. Over five generations, the clan built a domain that covered much of the Kanto region. Odawara was their capital, and they made it into a fortress city.

Here is the first thing most visitors miss. The castle you see today is only the heart of something much larger. At its peak, the Hojo defences included a vast outer ring of earthworks and ditches called the sogamae. This perimeter wrapped around the entire town, not just the castle. Farms, homes and markets sat inside its protection. Traces of these old earth walls still survive in parts of the modern city, if you know where to look.

That great ring was tested in 1590. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the warlord who was uniting Japan, brought an enormous army to Odawara. The Hojo did not ride out to fight. They stayed behind their walls, trusting their defences to outlast the enemy. The siege lasted for months. Hideyoshi's forces surrounded the town by land and by sea, and slowly the pressure became unbearable.

On a hillside to the southwest, Hideyoshi built a castle of his own, now called Ishigakiyama, or the One-Night Castle. According to a popular tale, his men built it hidden behind trees, then cut the trees down all at once. The defenders woke to see a finished castle where there had been only forest. The real construction took far longer than one night. But as a piece of theatre, the story still works.

The siege also left a phrase in the Japanese language. People still say Odawara hyojo, which means an Odawara council. It describes a meeting that talks and talks but never reaches a decision. The phrase recalls the Hojo leaders, who are said to have argued endlessly about whether to fight or surrender. In the end, they surrendered. The clan lost its domain, and the Hojo century in Odawara was over.

After the siege, the Kanto region passed to Tokugawa Ieyasu, who would soon become shogun. Odawara remained an important castle through the Edo period, held by lords loyal to the Tokugawa. It guarded the road and watched the nearby Hakone checkpoint, where travellers were inspected. Then the world changed. In the 1870s, after Japan's new Meiji government abolished the old feudal domains, most of the castle buildings were taken down.

Nature added more damage. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 shook this region violently, and parts of the castle's stone walls collapsed. As you walk the grounds, look closely at the stonework. Some sections are old, some are repaired, and the difference is often visible in the shape and fit of the stones. The walls you see carry the marks of both builders and earthquakes.

Now look up at the keep. Here is the second surprise. This tower is a reconstruction, completed in 1960 using reinforced concrete. Its builders studied old drawings and models to recreate the exterior faithfully. From outside, it looks like a castle of the samurai age. Inside, you will find a modern museum, with exhibits on the Hojo clan, armour, swords and the life of the castle town. The gates on your approach were rebuilt later, using more traditional methods.

One of those gates deserves a slow look. The Akagane Gate takes its name from the copper fittings on its heavy wooden doors. Akagane is an old Japanese word for copper. Gates like this were not just entrances. They formed a trap. Attackers who broke through the outer door found themselves in a small square courtyard, surrounded by walls, exposed to defenders on every side.

When you climb to the top of the keep, step out onto the viewing deck and turn slowly. To one side, the blue curve of Sagami Bay. To another, the green ridges of Hakone. Below, the modern city spreads where the old castle town once stood. Trains slide past near the station. Older residents remember another resident of the park, an elephant named Umeko, who lived in the castle grounds for decades until 2009.

The park changes with the seasons. In spring, cherry trees bloom along the moats and paths, and families spread blankets beneath them. Early summer brings irises and hydrangeas near the water. In the town around you, look for shops selling kamaboko, a local fish cake, and pickled plums, both long associated with Odawara. These small tastes connect the castle to the everyday life that has always surrounded it.

As you leave, pause for a moment on one of the bridges over the moat. Watch the white walls in the water, rippling slightly when the wind moves. Think of the Hojo lords, arguing late into the night behind these walls, and of the army camped on the hills beyond. Then listen again. The gravel, the pines, the crows, the distant trains. The castle is still here, and so is the town it was built to protect.