A Princess Returns to Her Family's Castle, 4,000 People Pull It Home

Princess Hanako of Hitachi, the 86-year-old aunt by marriage of Japan's Emperor Naruhito, made a rare public appearance on Friday, August 21, to open a ceremony that will see Hirosaki Castle's 400-ton keep hauled back to its original stone foundation by ropes.

She has a personal connection to the place. Born Hanako Tsugaru, she is a descendant of the aristocratic Tsugaru clan, which built the castle in 1611 and governed the surrounding domain for centuries. The castle, in what is now Aomori Prefecture in northeastern Japan, is one of only 12 feudal-era castle towers still standing in the country and the only one in eastern Japan. (Town & Country)

The keep has been sitting roughly 256 feet from where it belongs. In 2015, the city of Hirosaki used a traditional Japanese building-relocation technique called hikiya — a method of moving entire structures on rails — to slide the tower off its stone base so the walls beneath could be repaired. Eleven years later, it is going back.

The public event, officially named "Hippare! Keppare! Hirosaki Castle" — roughly, "Pull it! Do your best! Hirosaki Castle" — runs from August 21 through August 28 and has drawn about 4,000 lottery-chosen participants, who pull the keep along its rails with ropes, moving it several inches at a time. (@press)

On the first day of public pulling, about 1,000 people moved the keep approximately 43 inches. By the end of 2026, the tower is expected to be fully returned to its original position, where seismic reinforcement work will also be completed to protect it from future earthquakes.

There is something to the image of a princess whose family built a castle four centuries ago standing watch as strangers haul it home, inch by inch, with ropes. The Tsugaru clan ruled the Hirosaki domain for generations; Princess Hanako married into the imperial family in 1961 when she wed Prince Hitachi, the younger brother of Emperor Emeritus Akihito. The princess is now 86 and makes few public appearances, which made her attendance at the opening ceremony notable on its own.

The keep itself is modest by castle standards — a three-story wooden structure standing on stone walls — but its survival is rare. Japan once had hundreds of feudal-era castle towers; war, fire, and demolition left only a dozen standing. Hirosaki's is one of them, and within a few months it will sit exactly where the Tsugaru clan put it 415 years ago.