Takamatsu Castle

Takamatsu Castle, on the Shikoku coast near the Inland Sea, is one of the few Japanese castles whose moat draws directly from the sea — the original keep was demolished in 1884, so the surviving structures are gates, turrets, and the encircling stone-and-water enclosure. Hashimoto's print likely focuses on a turret (yagura) or a stretch of the seawater moat with stone embankment, since the keep no longer existed during his working lifetime. The maritime moat distinguishes the site from the inland castles he depicted elsewhere and would have invited [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations across the water surface to register tidal flatness and reflected sky. The composition belongs to Hashimoto's broader documentary project of recording Japan's castle heritage as a [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) subject, treating each site as a distinct architectural problem rather than reproducing a fixed iconography.