Hirosaki Castle keep restoration progress

Hirosaki City is hosting the ‘Hippare! Keppare! Hirosaki-jo’ event at Hirosaki Park to celebrate the restoration of the Hirosaki Castle keep. As part of the ‘tenshu hikimodoshi’ (castle tower pulling back) process, participants are working to manually pull the structure back onto its original stone foundation. This restoration follows the movement of the tower approximately 11 years ago for repairs, including addressing a wall previously damaged by a major earthquake. Following the completion of the wall repairs in late 2024, officials are now working to return the nationally designated important cultural property to its historical site. The process utilizes the ‘ashikiya’ technique, where the historic structure is placed on rails and rollers to avoid dismantling it. In a recent weekend event, approximately 1,800 volunteers used 30-metre ropes to pull the 360 to 400-tonne keep in rotating teams of 80. This effort moved the structure approximately 2.22 metres closer to its original position, with 1.13 metres moved on Saturday and 1.09 metres on Sunday. The event was heavily oversubscribed, receiving about 8,000 applications for the available slots, with participants traveling from across Japan and internationally from Southeast Asia, Europe, and North America to join the citizen-driven ‘hikiya’ process. While volunteers are expected to move the keep a total of 5 metres by hand this month, machinery will be used to complete the remaining 73 metres of the relocation by the end of the year. The castle is expected to reopen to visitors in 2033. In August 2026, the relocation process continued following the completion of stone wall repairs involving 2,185 stones. On August 23, 2026, participants used ropes to incrementally shift the keep toward its proper position.