Available inside Nagoya Castle.
The Nagoya Castle Typography T-shirt is sold at two shops inside the castle grounds — the Naien Shop and the Main Gate Souvenir Shop.
Sizes: S / M / L / XL
Open 9:00–16:45.
What the castle says.
Step back and you see a castle. Step closer and it dissolves into language.
The roof is written history. It tells how Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered this castle built in 1610, how two golden shachi crowned its tower, how it became one of Japan's first National Treasures, and how it burned in the war.
The stone walls are names.
Nagoya Castle was not built by Ieyasu's own retainers. He ordered some twenty daimyo — regional lords, most of them from western Japan — to quarry the stone, haul it, and raise the walls at their own expense.
These were not his men. Most had risen under the Toyotomi, the family he was preparing to destroy at Osaka. Making them build his fortress drained their treasuries and bound them to him at the same time.
The system was called Tenka Bushin.
Every name in the stonework belonged to a lord who actually did this. Look closely and you will see the letters are filled with the texture of stone.
NAGOYA was built by the Western provinces Daimyo in a system called Tenka Bushin.
Why this T-shirt exists.
A collaboration between Chris Glenn, an Australian radio DJ and castle historian based in Nagoya, and Yoshikuni Inoue, a Japanese designer.
One knows what the castle means. The other knows how to make it wearable.
Every word on this shirt was chosen, then set by hand — letter by letter — until the shape of the castle appeared.
Chris Glenn
Host of RADIO ORBIT on ZIP-FM (Sundays 10:00–13:00), and a familiar face on NHK's Bura Tamori and NHK WORLD's NINJA TRUTH and SAMURAI CASTLES.
He has visited more than 650 castles across Japan.
Nagoya Castle, more than 900 times.
Director of the Japan Castle Association since 2023.
Yoshikuni Inoue
A Tokyo-based designer running Yoshikuni, an apparel brand for people who love history.
He rebuilt Nagoya Castle out of type.
