天守 (tenshu) is the Japanese word for a castle tower. There are only 12 original tenshu left in Japan. I visited them all over a couple of years and made some simple videos. You can find a map of the 12 and a little more information on this page.
Maruoka is one of the most rural castles I’ve been to, and that’s including Bitchu-Matsuyama. It’s also one of the hardest to get to, but that’s only if you’re using logic and not maps.
My recommendation to you would be to avoid taking a train to Maruoka station entirely; while it’s a pretty funky little station, it’s also a good 5km from the castle and there aren’t really any actual buses.
There was, fortunately for me, a community bus for which I only waited 40 minutes.
So, if you want to get to Maruoka castle, eschew the sensible notion that the station named Maruoka is your best bet and embrace the probable quickest route – taking a highway bus & getting off at the interchange for Maruoka castle. I can’t confirm, because I did this trip the stupid way, but it looks like that would have saved me a couple of hours, some hair pulling, a lot of confusion & my taxi fare on the way back.
However, I wouldn’t have met the cool old lady at the train station, who gave me some oranges from her garden and introduced me to the madcap antics of her grandsons. I also wouldn’t have had a chat with a groovy taxi driver about which castle in Japan is actually the oldest. Matsumoto, Inuyama & Maruoka all say they’re the oldest, but, as I recall, some evidence was discovered recently during archaeological digs at Inuyama that disproves their claim & they graciously told everyone about it. So that leaves Matsumoto & Maruoka, right? Well…. hang on a bit….
Possibly the weirdest thing about Maruoka castle is that it’s kind of a Schrödinger’s Cat on the list of the 12 tenshu – it is simultaneously an original castle but also not.
You see, in 1948, a magnitude 7 earthquake demolished the castle. It was then rebuilt in 1955 using most of the original materials, so it still counts as original.
(I mean, I think that’s a fair assessment. Your mileage may vary. On the other hand, I’d personally argue that this ‘fall down-get up again’ routine disqualifies Maruoka from being the oldest castle in the land, but it’s not like I’m on any committees.)
Maruoka castle is a hirayama castle, meaning that it’s a castle on a hill surrounded by plains. Like a lot of Japanese castles, it’s the proud bearer of an alternative name: kasumigajo or ‘Mist Castle’. It has the magic ability to hide itself in mist when it is being attacked.
To my knowledge, Maruoka never actually saw any battles but did have a very colourful history of ownership – built by the Shibata clan, it was passed on to the Aoyama clan who, unfortunately, backed the wrong side in the Battle of Sekigahara. Tokugawa Ieyasu gave it to one of his sons, which was kind of his thing – old Ieyasu was pretty prodigious with his progeny. Then it ended up with the Honda clan, and this is where I like the way the story goes – it was taken off them after a couple of generations because the daimyo was a drunk & not terribly good at his job. I think this was near the end of the 17th century, and the next owners would be the last: the Arima clan retained stewardship of the castle until 1901, when they donated it to the town of Maruoka. (Itself now incorporated into the larger city of Sakai.)
In terms of appearance, Maruoka isn’t as much of a looker as say, Matsumoto, but she’s rocking a stone roof, which is very unusual – stone wasn’t ever really used for roofs owing to the weight.
The castle is surrounded by beautiful gardens which are famed for their cherry blossoms. Of course, my timing being what it is, I arrived at Maruoka just in time to see the place being set up for cherry blossom season, and nothing but bare trees, just starting to put on their spring get-up.
As a consolation though, I did very much enjoy like this lantern:
Maruoka castle also boasts some unusual stairs, which I think could be the longest flight up to a castle in Japan, but again, I’m not on any committees:
CityHillsAndSea 
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