Wakayama Castle Okaguchi Gate

The Gate That Outlived the Castle Around It

Of the many buildings that once stood inside Wakayama Castle, only one came through the air raids of July 1945 intact: the Okaguchi Gate. It sits at the southeastern edge of the castle grounds in central Wakayama City, a two-storey gatehouse of the type Japanese builders called a yagura-mon, in which a defensive upper chamber is set across the passage below. The structure standing there now dates to 1621 (Genna 7).

The gate began life facing the other way around. When Asano Yoshinaga held the domain around 1600, this opening served as the castle's main gate, the ote-mon. That arrangement ended after Tokugawa Yorinobu, the tenth son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, entered Wakayama in 1619 and founded the Kishū branch of the Tokugawa house. The principal approach was moved to the Ichinohashi entrance on the northeast, and in 1621 the Okaguchi Gate was rebuilt as the karamete-mon, the rear gate. It has kept that role ever since.

Why It Is Protected

The gate was designated a National Important Cultural Property on June 18, 1957. Part of its value lies in scarcity. Wakayama Castle once held a group of designated buildings, among them a keep that had ranked as a National Treasure under the prewar system. The firebombing of July 9, 1945 took the keep and most of the rest. The Okaguchi Gate and the earthen wall beside it were among the few that remained, which makes them rare physical survivors of the Edo-period castle.

The earthen wall running north from the gate, roughly 40 metres long, is listed together with it as an attached property (tsuketari). The wall holds twelve gun ports cut for matchlock fire. Each loophole was hollowed out of a single slab of stone rather than framed in timber and plaster, an uncommon method that is part of why the wall earned protection in its own right.

What to Look At

Stand under the passage and study the doors. The leaves swing inward, and their faces, along with the corners of the posts, are sheathed in iron plate, a guard against anyone trying to hack or burn a way through. The roof is a gabled kirizuma form laid with heavy ceramic tile (hongawara-buki).

The upper floor rewards a closer look. The defensive design wanted the wall to read as one solid mass, so the pillars and the horizontal nageshi tie-beams were modelled in raised plaster across the outside rather than left bare. Repairs are recorded in the mid-Taishō years, again in early Shōwa, and once more around 1960.

The wall's stone loopholes are easy to walk past. Take the north side slowly and count them: twelve openings driven through single stones, each angled to command the ground outside.

Around the Gate

The gate stands inside Wakayama Castle Park, which is free to enter, so the exterior can be seen at any hour. The interior is not generally open. A short climb leads to the reconstructed keep, rebuilt in concrete in 1958 after the wartime loss, open daily from 9:00 to 17:30 with last entry at 17:00; admission is 410 yen for adults and 200 yen for elementary and junior high school students, and the keep closes December 29 to 31.

Beside the gate is Oka Park, the quarry that supplied the bluish chlorite-schist stone in the castle's oldest walls; cut marks still show on the rock faces. Within the grounds are the Nishinomaru Garden, a strolling garden designated a National Place of Scenic Beauty and known for its autumn colour, the Ohashi-rōka covered bridge, and a small free zoo. From JR Wakayama Station a city bus reaches the Wakayama-jō-mae stop in about ten minutes, followed by a ten-minute walk; Nankai Wakayamashi Station is about ten minutes away on foot.