In the ancient castle town of Hirosaki, in Japan's northern Aomori prefecture, nearly two thousand people gathered to do what machines could have done alone — and chose not to. Using ropes, rollers, and a centuries-old technique called hikiya, they moved a 360-tonne castle keep by hand, chanting in unison across two days of late August heat. The act was at once a feat of preservation engineering and something older: a community choosing to bear the weight of its own history, together.
Japan enlists 1,800 citizens to hand-pull 360-tonne castle keep using ancient technique
There's absolutely no other opportunity to pull a castle
Mark
Why did they need to move it at all? Why not just repair the wall where it stood?
Mimi
An earthquake damaged the wall foundation. To properly restore it — to restack all 2,185 stones in their original positions — they needed the weight of the keep off the ground. It's a 360-tonne structure. You can't work underneath that.
Mark
And they chose to move it by hand rather than use machinery from the start?
Mimi
Not entirely by hand. The keep sits on rails and rollers — that's the hikiya technique. But yes, they're using human power for the first five metres as a deliberate choice. It's partly practical — machinery can be expensive and cumbersome — but it's also cultural. This is a nationally important structure. There's something about doing it the ancient way, with citizens participating, that honors what the building is.
Mark
Eight thousand people applied for 1,800 slots. What does that tell you?
Mimi
That people understand they're being invited into something rare. You don't get asked to pull a castle. One man came from Hiroshima — the other end of the country — because he'd done it eleven years ago and wanted to do it again. He said there's no other opportunity like it. That's not casual interest.
Mark
The keep won't reopen until 2033. That's years of closure for a major tourist draw.
Mimi
Seven years, roughly. Two million visitors come during cherry-blossom season alone. But the castle is four hundred years old — older than that, really, if you count the original structure. Seven years of closure to do the work properly is a reasonable trade-off for preservation that might extend its life another four centuries.
Mark
Why does the hikiya method matter so much?
Mimi
Because dismantling a structure like this — taking it apart stone by stone, timber by timber — risks losing information. The way the pieces fit, the original materials, the craftsmanship. Moving it intact preserves all of that. It's the difference between restoration and archaeology.
El Pulso
- A major earthquake damaged the castle wall beneath Hirosaki's 360-tonne keep, forcing authorities to act before the structure itself was compromised.
- Rather than dismantle a nationally designated cultural treasure, officials revived hikiya — an ancient relocation technique unused for castles in over a century — placing the keep on rollers to be pulled intact.
- When the city opened 1,800 volunteer slots, more than 8,000 people applied, with participants arriving from across Japan and from Europe, Southeast Asia, and North America.
- Rotating teams of eighty pulled the keep just over two metres across two days, chanting 'so-re, so-re' in a rhythm that transformed an engineering task into communal ritual.
- Manual pulling will continue through August, moving the keep five metres total by human effort alone, before machinery carries it the remaining seventy-three metres by year's end.
- The keep is not expected to reopen to the public until 2033 — meaning the millions who visit Hirosaki's famous cherry-blossom park will wait years before they can enter the tower their hands helped move.
In the ancient castle town of Hirosaki, in Japan's northern Aomori prefecture, nearly two thousand people gathered to do what machines could have done alone — and chose not to. Using ropes, rollers, and a centuries-old technique called hikiya, they moved a 360-tonne castle keep by hand, chanting in unison across two days of late August heat. The act was at once a feat of preservation engineering and something older: a community choosing to bear the weight of its own history, together.
On a late August weekend, nearly 1,800 people gathered at Hirosaki Castle in northern Japan — not as visitors, but as participants in something rare. In rotating teams of eighty, they gripped thirty-metre ropes and pulled a 360-tonne fortified tower across rails, guided by the traditional work chant "so-re, so-re." Over two days, the keep moved just over two metres. It was a modest distance that had taken months to plan.
The reason for the move was structural: an earthquake had damaged the castle wall beneath the keep. Rather than dismantle the nationally designated cultural property, officials turned to hikiya, an ancient Japanese technique for relocating buildings whole, on rollers. It was the first time the method had been used to move a castle in more than a century.
The public response was extraordinary. The city received roughly 8,000 applications for 1,800 spots, with interest coming from across Japan and from overseas. For Motoharu Nakata, a 61-year-old from Hiroshima who had also pulled the keep during a 2015 citizen-driven effort, the return was deeply felt. "There's absolutely no other opportunity to pull a castle," he said. "It's very moving to be able to participate again."
That earlier effort had been the first of its kind — a pioneering moment in community-led preservation. The wall restoration that followed took years; by December 2024, all 2,185 stones had been carefully restacked. Now the keep was making its journey home.
Manual pulling will continue through August, with some 4,100 people scheduled to move the keep five metres by hand in total. Machinery will complete the remaining seventy-three metres by year's end. It is a hybrid of ritual and engineering — honoring both the cultural gravity of the structure and the practical demands of modern conservation.
Hirosaki's keep is one of only twelve original castle keeps remaining in Japan, and the only one in the Tohoku region. The castle dates to 1611, though the current keep was rebuilt in 1810 after lightning destroyed its predecessor. The park it anchors draws around two million visitors each cherry-blossom season. Those visitors will need patience: once repositioned, the keep will be enclosed for preservation work, with public access not expected until 2033.
On a weekend in late August, the sound of synchronized chanting echoed across a castle grounds in northern Japan. Roughly 1,800 people had gathered at Hirosaki Castle in Aomori prefecture, not as tourists but as participants in something far more unusual: the collective act of pulling a 360-tonne fortified tower across rails, hand over hand, using ropes that stretched thirty metres long. The rhythmic cry of "so-re, so-re" — a traditional work chant — marked the pace as rotating teams of eighty people took their turns at the ropes, inching the structure forward by fractions of a metre each day.
The keep, as the fortified tower within a castle is known, had to be moved because of damage to the castle wall caused by a major earthquake. Rather than dismantle this nationally designated important cultural property, officials chose to employ hikiya, an ancient Japanese technique in which buildings are placed on rollers and shifted rather than taken apart. It was a method that had not been used to move a castle in over a century. Over Saturday and Sunday, the team managed to advance the keep by just over two metres — 1.13 metres on the first day, 1.09 metres on the second — a modest distance that represented months of planning and coordination.
The response from the public was overwhelming. When Hirosaki City opened applications for the 1,800 available slots, they received roughly 8,000 requests. The appeal crossed boundaries of geography and age. Kensuke Hayasaka, head of the parks and green spaces division at the city, noted that applicants came not only from across Japan but from southeast Asia, Europe, and North America. For many, the opportunity to participate in such an event was singular — there would be no other chance to pull a castle by hand.
This was not the first time the city had enlisted citizens for such work. In 2015, Hirosaki had pioneered what became the first citizen-driven hikiya effort, when volunteers helped move the keep to allow access to the damaged wall. That wall restoration took years. By December 2024, all 2,185 stones had been restacked in their original positions. Now, with that work complete, the keep needed to return home.
Motoharu Nakata, a 61-year-old from Hiroshima at the opposite end of Japan, had made the journey twice. He had pulled the keep eleven years earlier and returned to do so again. "There's absolutely no other opportunity to pull a castle," he told a local newspaper. "It's very moving to be able to participate again."
The manual pulling effort will continue through the end of August, with approximately 4,100 people scheduled to participate in moving the keep a total of five metres by hand. The remaining seventy-three metres will be completed using machinery by year's end. It is a hybrid approach — part symbolic community ritual, part practical engineering — that honors both the cultural weight of the structure and the constraints of modern preservation work.
Hirosaki Castle's keep is one of only twelve such structures remaining in Japan, and the sole example in the Tohoku region. The castle itself was completed in 1611 as the seat of the Tsugaru clan, though the original keep burned in 1627 when lightning struck a gunpowder store. The current structure dates to 1810. Today the castle anchors a park that draws approximately two million visitors annually during cherry-blossom season. But those visitors will have to wait. Once the keep is repositioned on its original base, preservation work will begin in earnest, and the entire structure will be enclosed. Based on current timelines, the keep is not expected to reopen to the public until 2033.
Citas Notables
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. Not only from the city, but from across Japan and overseas.— Kensuke Hayasaka, head of parks and green spaces at Hirosaki City
I pulled it 11 years ago too. It's very moving to be able to participate again. There's absolutely no other opportunity to pull a castle.— Motoharu Nakata, 61, volunteer from Hiroshima
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