Visit gallery
Arguably, Osaka castle is the next best thing in this city after takoyaki. Just as this great food, the castle is also a heritage from the era of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He was one of the three great unifiers of the warring state era (sengoku jidai), two other being Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Although they were contemporaries, these three leaders were strikingly different in personality. Yoshikawa Eiji wrote the following variation of a popular verse about them in the preface to the epic book about Hideyoshi (Taiko):
What if the bird will not sing?
Nobunaga answers, “Kill it!”
Hideyoshi answers, “Make it want to sing.”
Ieyasu answers, “Wait.”
Photography notes
Amazingly, Osaka castle dominates the skyline of the city even these days, at the age of skyscrapers. The panoramic views from the main tower are breathtaking and are straightforward to photograph. Wide lenses are useful for capturing golden architectural details of the building in the foreground.
The main tower houses an excellent museum of the warring era, where photography is allowed, but light levels are low. Typical considerations for photographing in museums apply there.
We only had less than a day to explore the castle, as we were staying in Kyoto. Hopefully next year, I will have an opportunity to explore the city some more. If you have tips on things to photograph in Osaka and/or related techniques, please leave a comment.