This broadcast has now finished (12 July 2026). Thank you to everyone who watched. You can see how the day went in the recording below.
On Sunday 12 July 2026, from 13:30, we streamed “Walking Ichijodani with our celebrated guide: the Reconstructed Townscape” live online. Thank you very much to all of you who joined us.
In the Sengoku period the Ichijodani Asakura Family Historic Ruins flourished as the heart of Echizen. In this valley ringed by mountains on all four sides, the Asakura family built a castle town over five generations and roughly a century, and excavation has carried its appearance down to the present day. The site now holds a triple designation as a Special Historic Site, a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and an Important Cultural Property, and it is working towards inscription as a World Heritage Site.
The setting for this stream was the Reconstructed Townscape, the best known part of the whole site. Together with our celebrated guide, we walked the Sengoku castle town through the screen.
A Sengoku castle town brought back to life: the Reconstructed Townscape
The Reconstructed Townscape is a stretch of some 200 metres in which the samurai residences and townhouses of the day have been rebuilt in three dimensions, on the basis of the excavations and the historical records. It opened in 1995, the first facility in Japan to reconstruct a castle town in three dimensions at full scale. The stone walls of the perimeter and the foundation stones of the buildings are the originals uncovered by excavation, still in place, which makes this a rare spot indeed — a Sengoku castle town you can genuinely walk through.
Earthen walls and townhouses lined up neatly on either side of the street, stone walls and foundation stones underfoot — in this live stream we walked the Reconstructed Townscape and reported on how the people of the Sengoku period lived, from the site itself.
Your guide: Kiyoshi Kishida, our celebrated guide
Showing us round is Kiyoshi Kishida, chairman of Creative ASUWA, who has guided visitors at Ichijodani for many years. His deep knowledge of the site and his vivid, unscripted commentary as he walks the ground are not to be missed. Episodes you will not find in any guidebook, and the highlights of each season, all come with the immediacy that only a live broadcast can offer.
What the stream covers (around 60 minutes)
- An overview of the Reconstructed Townscape — how the castle town came about, and how it was laid out
- The samurai residence area — reading the life of a residence from its stone walls and foundation stones
- The townhouse area — the street where the craftsmen lived, and the trades of the day
- Highlights — the remains our chairman recommends, tales from behind the scenes of the excavations, and the landscape through the seasons
- About Creative ASUWA — our work towards World Heritage inscription
Stream details
- Date and time: Sunday 12 July 2026, from 13:30 (around 60 minutes)
- Location: the Reconstructed Townscape, Ichijodani Asakura Family Historic Ruins (Kidonouchi-cho, Fukui City, Fukui Prefecture)
- Guide: Kiyoshi Kishida (chairman of Creative ASUWA)
- How to watch: live on YouTube Live and on X
- Cost: free
- Produced by: Creative ASUWA
Watch the recording here
The broadcast has now finished. You can see how the day went in the recording below.
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilxzmSnfav4
- X (formerly Twitter): https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1MKgNNwQVnbxL?s=20
You may enjoy this if…
- you are interested in the Ichijodani Asakura Family Historic Ruins but have never been
- you would like to know about life in a Sengoku-period castle town
- you live outside Fukui Prefecture and would like to experience Ichijodani from afar
- you are one of the many people who support the work of Creative ASUWA
Even if you find it hard to visit in person, you can spend an hour walking the site alongside our celebrated guide, through your screen. Towards World Heritage status for the Ichijodani Asakura Family Historic Ruins. Come and discover what makes this place so special.