In stark contrast to the white "Egret Castle" of neighboring Himeji, Okayama Castle has a black exterior, earning it the nickname Crow Castle (烏城, U-jō) or "castle of the black bird". (The black castle of Matsumoto in Nagano is also known as "Crow Castle", but it is karasu-jō in Japanese.)
Today, only a few parts of Okayama Castle's roof (including the fish-shaped-gargoyles) are gilded, but prior to the Battle of Sekigahara the main keep also featured gilded roof tiles, earning it the nickname Golden Crow Castle (金烏城, Kin U-jō).
History
In 1570, Ukita Naoie killed castle lord Kanemitsu Munetaka and started remodeling the castle[2] and completed by his son Hideie in 1597. Three years later, Hideie sided with the ill-fated Toyotomi Clan at the Battle of Sekigahara, was captured by the Tokugawa Clan and exiled to the island prison of Hachijo. The castle and surrounding fiefdoms were given to Kobayakawa Hideaki as spoils of war. Kobayakawa died just two years later without leaving an heir, and the castle (and fiefdom) was given to the Ikeda Clan, who later added Kōraku-en as a private garden.
In 1869 the castle became the property of the Meiji government's Hyōbu-shō (Ministry of War), who saw the 'samurai' era castles as archaic and unnecessary. Like many other castles throughout Japan, the outer moats were filled in, most castle buildings were dismantled and the old castle walls gradually disappeared underneath the city. On June 29, 1945, allied bombers burnt the main keep, and an adjacent gate, to the ground, leaving only two turrets remaining and some of the stone walls remaining. Reconstruction work on the keep and gate began in 1964 and was completed in 1966. In 1996 the rooftop gargoyles were gilded as part of the 400th anniversary celebrations.
The reconstructed main keep is a concrete building complete with air-conditioning, elevators and numerous displays documenting the castle's history (with a heavy focus on the Ikeda era.) Little information is available in English. Access to the inner sanctuary is free.
^Hinago, Motoo (1986). Japanese Castles. Kodansha International Ltd. and Shibundo. p. 46. ISBN0870117661.
^"宇喜多直家" (in Japanese). Okayama city official. Retrieved 23 October 2021.
Further reading
Benesch, Oleg and Ran Zwigenberg (2019). Japan's Castles: Citadels of Modernity in War and Peace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 374. ISBN9781108481946.
De Lange, William (2021). An Encyclopedia of Japanese Castles. Groningen: Toyo Press. pp. 600 pages. ISBN978-9492722300.
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