The Island of Laputa

Twenty Minutes from Kada

Tomogashima lies just twenty minutes by boat from Kada, a port town in Wakayama Prefecture. On a map of Japan, the islands are no more than a cluster of tiny dots beside Honshu. Yet within that modest presence lies far more than their size would ever suggest.

Kitan Strait, Japan

A boat named Laputa takes on passengers at the bustling landing and sets out. Blue accents stand out against its white hull. On the mainland, daily life continues at its usual rhythm; on Tomogashima, there is a stillness that makes time seem to have stopped. The boat travels back and forth between these two kinds of time. During the short crossing, I felt the present day gradually receding.

As the boat moved on, the island's green ridgeline drew closer. Somewhere within it, brick fortifications must be lying buried. I had seen these scenes in photographs again and again. But it was not the photographed scenery itself that I wanted to discover. What would I feel when I actually stood before those walls of stone, overgrown with grass? Until I stood there, I could not know.

Laputa (the boat's name, after Castle in the Sky)

Landing at Nonoura

It was late August. As the boat approached the island, the cries of seabirds rose like a chorus, and the scent of salt and pine reached us across the water. It was as though nature itself were inviting us into the place we were about to enter.

An unexpected quiet awaited me when I stepped onto Nonoura Pier. A small visitor center and a cafe stood unobtrusively among grassy campsites. Given the island's complicated history, the scene was almost too pastoral. Yet beyond that quiet landscape, walking trails branched and wound into the greenery. As I watched the paths disappear among the trees, I felt they were calling me onward.

A hammock in the pine grove

Third Battery ruins, 0.2 km; main observation deck, 0.3 km; Tomogashima Lighthouse, 1.0 km. At the island's forks in the path stand numbered wooden signposts giving destinations and distances. The neatly maintained signs against the mossy rock face reminded me once again that this was a tourist destination. The sight brought a wry smile to my face.

But on an island that was once a fortress, directions could hardly have been so helpful. It would not have done to let intruders wander freely. Seen in that light, today's clear signposts take on a different meaning. Ironically, the well-maintained signs themselves tell us that this was a place where, without directions, even reaching the structures would have been difficult.

Signpost

The Fifth Battery: A Fortress Too Late

The path leading west was covered in fallen leaves. After a while, I saw two solitary brick pillars standing farther along it. They marked the entrance to the Fifth Battery, the first military remnant I encountered on the island. The gates had vanished long ago, and now the path passed between the two pillars as though nothing had ever stood there.

Gateposts of the Fifth Battery

Construction of this battery began in January 1900 and was completed in March 1905. Built during the years of the Russo-Japanese War, it was finished just two months before the Battle of Tsushima. Six 12 cm guns were installed. In other words, by the time it was ready, the adversary it had been intended to guard against was already close to disappearing. Designed to turn its guns on foreign vessels approaching Osaka Bay without permission, the structure would eventually reach the end of its service without ever fulfilling that role.

Beyond the brick gateposts, stone walls closed in on both sides of the path. Moss and ferns grew on the walls of the cutting, and branches arched overhead, shutting out almost all the sunlight. Once, this had not been a place anyone could enter freely. Soldiers passed along this path with purpose and tension, while sentries checked the identities of those who came through. It was a boundary intended to protect a secret, to keep the island's true nature from becoming known. Nor had the battery beyond it been placed there by chance. Everything, down to the angle of its position, had been calculated to keep it hidden from the enemy while maximizing its defensive effectiveness.

Inside the ready-use ammunition store, light entered through window frames that had lost their glass, laying gentle patterns across the worn floor. Beneath the barrel-vaulted ceiling, the greenery outside appeared through the doorway ahead and the windows on either side like three separate pictures. A space that had once contained the precision of military operations now had a strangely contemplative air.

Between Earth and Sky

I followed the gravel path farther uphill. It threaded its way past exposed rock, where tree roots clung to the surface and moss lent its green.

In the woods of pine and oak, sunlight filtering through the treetops patterned the ground. As the trees swayed, the light on the path swayed with them. Here and there among the trees remained weathered stone foundations, traces of small facilities that once stood here. Looking at those scattered stones, I could sense that the island itself had once been a vast defensive apparatus, assembled with precision.

An island path

A path in dappled sunlight

The Seto Inland Sea stretched on without end. From an observation point along the coast, I could see the silhouettes of distant islands, with an occasional ship passing between them. The water was calm in the afternoon sun, but those who had once looked out to sea from this place had seen it differently. The island's military planners had stationed lookouts here, keeping their eyes trained constantly beyond the horizon. Standing here, I did not have to wonder why Tomogashima had been chosen as a fortress. Every vessel entering or leaving Osaka Bay passed through the view from this height.

The coastal observation point

Takanosuyama Observatory stands at the island's highest point. It was off my route, however, and I did not climb that far. Nor did I visit the Second Battery or the gun emplacements of the Third Battery. The only parts of the Third Battery I actually walked through were the passage in front of the ammunition magazines and the row of magazines underground.

There are still many paths on this island that I have not walked. Indeed, the paths I did not manage to follow stretch farther than those I did. That is part of what makes me want to return to Tomogashima. On Torajima, too, there is Johon Cave, associated with En no Gyoja. But it can be reached only at low tide. On my next visit, I would like to check the tides before boarding the boat.

The Third Battery: A Cathedral of War

At last, the path led me to the island's crowning sight: the Third Battery. Construction began in October 1890 and was completed in May 1892. Here stood the largest and most architecturally refined of all the island's structures. Eight 28 cm howitzers. This was no mere storehouse. It was a meticulously designed complex representing the culmination of nineteenth-century coastal defense technology, built to house immense guns intended to deter invasion.

An enormous amount of time and labor went into its construction. The builders dug deep into the bedrock, creating a web of red-brick corridors that reached into the heart of the island. The bricks were laid in English bond. Soldiers used these underground passages to carry shells and gunpowder. The design had to maintain ventilation, minimize the risk of one explosion setting off another, and provide as much ammunition storage as possible. To reconcile these conflicting requirements, even the smallest dimensions were calculated. The arches of the ceilings, too, had a clear structural purpose. Their shape, distributing loads efficiently, has kept the structure stable for more than a century. The beauty of those curves was inseparable from their function.

Passage in front of the ammunition magazines, Third Battery ruins

Standing in the passage connecting the ammunition magazines, I was struck by its uncanny resemblance to a cathedral. Perhaps what had existed here was faith in the fortress walls and their defensive strength. A cathedral built for a different kind of faith. Green-stained arches continued overhead, and only my own footsteps echoed back from the brickwork. These walls had witnessed decades of preparation for war. The passages, built to carry shells and gunpowder and planned even to provide escape routes in an emergency, had now lost their original purpose. All that remained was the whisper of history accumulated there, and the brightness beyond the dark corridors.

Passage connecting the ammunition magazines

What Remains of the Barracks

Leaving the fortress's monumental structures behind, I walked on until I came to the remains of old wooden barracks. While the brick batteries convey the imposing scale of a military installation, these remains speak of the daily lives of the people who lived there. From the Meiji era until the end of the Second World War, soldiers, engineers, and the support staff behind their work kept the batteries operating on this island. They slept and woke here, followed prescribed routines, shared meals, and spent quiet moments between duties.

Yet even these living quarters were built according to military logic. They offered basic shelter from the elements, but practical efficiency took precedence over comfort. Officers and enlisted men were housed separately, the strict hierarchy of command reflected in the arrangement of the buildings. The whole layout was also planned to keep the buildings concealed from offshore while allowing everyone to reach their posts quickly. The architecture itself expressed the military life of imperial Japan. Even so, when the island was still functioning as a military installation, there must have been the sounds of equipment being readied, conversations about home, and the presence of people trying to adapt to life in this isolated place.

Few traces of those lives remain today. The wooden structures linger quietly among the trees, their weathered surfaces slowly returning to the earth that has supported them. Fragments of foundation stones mark the positions of vanished walls, and grass-covered paths barely preserve the routes that once linked the living quarters to the other military facilities. Walking those paths, I pictured the soldiers who once lived here: people who stepped out of the barracks at dawn and followed the same paths I was walking now to their posts. The rhythm of defense and vigilance that governed the island for more than fifty years was nothing exceptional to them. It was inseparable from daily life itself.

Remains of the barracks

Underground

From the world above, filled with midsummer sunlight and the chorus of cicadas, I descended into a hollow enclosed on three sides by brick walls. Ahead was an arched doorway, its depths submerged in blackness. One step inside, and the air changed so completely that the heat outside seemed unreal. It was cold and damp. Cool air carrying the scent of stone touched my skin.

Entrance to the underground passages

Deep in the bedrock, a precise network of corridors had been built. The sheer accuracy with which the hard rock had been cut away was remarkable in itself. The angles of the walls, the drainage channels cut into the floor, the ventilation shafts bored to keep air circulating: careful planning was evident in every detail. After more than a century, the brickwork remained firm, bearing witness to the skill of its craftsmen. Once, this underground world had pulsed with military activity. In wartime, soldiers must have passed back and forth carrying shells and gunpowder, officers' voices must have rung out as they directed the defenses, and equipment must have creaked in the darkness. From today's silence, I could only imagine it.

In the darkness, the first thing I saw was the light at the exit. A bright rectangle, framed by the outline of an arch, floated at the far end of the passage. Until my eyes adjusted, I could see almost nothing else. Feeling the ground beneath the soles of my feet, I moved slowly through those few dozen paces. With every step, I felt as though I were touching the memory of someone who had walked this same place decades before.

Moss grew in the joints between the stones, and small plants had taken root. Only the edges reached by light from outside were tinged with green. In this corridor sunk beneath the island, I felt the passage of time more deeply than I had aboveground. There had been people who dug their way through here. There had been soldiers who guarded it. And now there was someone walking its silent passage in wonder. The tunnel seemed to hold, within its darkness, the memories of all those who had passed through.

A gateway of light

Afterword

I boarded the boat back to Kada.

Near the harbor is Manko Shoten. Even before leaving for Tomogashima, I had been looking forward to eating fish there on my return. I ordered a whitebait rice bowl and wasabi soup. To be honest, the name “wasabi soup” did not particularly appeal to me. But it was the restaurant's top recommendation, so I tried it. It turned out to be a soup made by gently simmering red sea bream overnight. It paired astonishingly well with the local wasabi.

Even now, I cannot forget the fried-egg bread and the heaped plates of meat and pasta in Castle in the Sky. I am sure the soup I discovered on this trip to Tomogashima will stay with me in much the same way. The island itself had been so rewarding that I was delighted the meal, too, had become unforgettable.

Looking only at the photographs, you might think there had been almost no one on Tomogashima. But I visited in the middle of the summer holidays. The island was bustling with tourists, and people came and went without pause. No one appears in the photographs because I waited for moments when no one was there. I waited a long time for the stream of people to break, then released the shutter in the brief openings that appeared.

The crowds were not the only thing that made photography difficult. The island's heat was relentless. Places to buy water were limited, too. Vending machines were found only around the harbor; once I headed into the hills, there was nowhere to replenish my supply. I climbed up and down the island's slopes again and again, carrying heavy photographic equipment. I still remember clearly the weight on my shoulders.