Akagi Castle (Kitayama Castle)

Akagi Castle is a mountain fortress located in the remote Kiwa District of Kumano City, Mie Prefecture, and is also known as Kitayama Castle. Around Tenshō 17 (1589), it was constructed by the renowned general Tōdō Takatora to suppress the Kitayama Ikki and strengthen control over the Kii Mountains. Its defining characteristics include a layout that skillfully utilized the steep mountainside and stone walls built using the nozurajimi dry-stacking technique; the surviving stonework demonstrates high technical achievement and is considered to exemplify the essence of Takatora's castle-building mastery. The Kitayama region had long been known for forestry, charcoal production, and gold mining, and local ikki forces were deeply entrenched; the completion of Akagi Castle allowed the Tōdō clan to bring the region under control. Following Sekigahara, it became part of Kishū han territory and was maintained as a surveillance post in the remote mountains; however, from the mid-Edo period onward it fell into practical abandonment. Today it is preserved as a nationally designated historic site, with its original stonework and fortified enclosures surviving in good condition. The landscape formed by the surrounding terraced rice paddies and the mountain fortress has gained renown as "Japan's primordial landscape" and has also been used as a filming location for NHK historical dramas. It has close ties to Kii mountain blades (Kushimoto-style and Tanabe-style), and there remains a history of blacksmiths in the Kitayama region who transitioned from making forestry tools—machetes and mountain blades—to crafting Japanese swords.