1,800 Volunteers Pull a 400-Ton Japanese Castle Keep Back Toward Its Original Location After a Decade of Restoration Work

The chance to help move the castle keep drew thousands of applications from Japan and abroad. Groups of lottery winners took turns tugging on thick ropes attached to the massive structure

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

August 27, 2026 3:43 p.m.

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Some 1,800 people gathered in northern Japan this month to help move a roughly 400-ton castle keep back toward its original location.

The move marks a major milestone in an extensive restoration project at the historic Hirosaki Castle, located in Aomori Prefecture. The work involved repairing the castle’s stone walls and conducting archaeological investigations, which uncovered remnants of older walls, a well and drainage structures.

Experts have been concerned about the castle keep for many years, particularly after an earthquake damaged a stone wall in 1983. Decades later, in 2015, they moved the structure roughly 256 feet, which allowed them to access the wall and conduct repairs. They used a method known as hikiya, which involves placing the structure on rollers, to move the keep without dismantling it.

Now, with some of the repairs complete, the keep has been moved again using a combination of machinery and manual labor. Last weekend, members of the public, who were selected by lottery, took turns pulling the keep back by hand.

“It’s like trying to move a mountain,” Takahiro Kogawa, a Hirosaki resident who helped pull the structure, tells Agence France-Presse.

Rotating groups of about 80 people tugged on nearly 100-foot-long ropes during short sessions throughout the day. On August 22, they moved the structure about four feet; on Sunday, they moved it roughly 3.5 feet. About 4,000 people are expected to take part in the effort this month, moving the keep a total of 16 feet before machines take over for the remaining 240 feet.

“We had about 8,000 applications for the 1,800 slots over the last two days, roughly four times oversubscribed, so not everyone could participate,” Kensuke Hayasaka, head of the parks and green spaces division at Hirosaki City, tells the Guardian’s Gavin Blair. “Not only from the city, but from across Japan and overseas; a fair number from southeast Asia and from Europe and North America.”

Some of the volunteers had also participated in the 2015 move. “I feel emotional being able to take part again,” Mei Umetsu, a high school student, tells Kyodo News.

Hirosaki Castle was completed in 1611, but its original five-story keep burned down after being struck by lightning in 1627. Construction of today’s three-story keep began in 1810. Today, it is one of Japan’s 12 surviving feudal-era castle towers and the only one remaining in the Tōhoku region.

The castle is also the centerpiece of a sprawling park, the site of an annual cherry blossom festival that attracts roughly two million visitors. But even when the keep is returned to its original site later this year, visitors will need to wait a little longer before they can step inside again.

“Once it’s back on the original base, the preservation work on the keep begins and the whole structure will be covered over,” Hayasaka tells the Guardian. “As things stand, we expect it to reopen to visitors in 2033.”

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.