Inuyama Castle is of boro construction with four stories, three roofs, and two basement levels but with the top tower looking like a completely different structure built on the bottom two. This is the oldest castle of such construction remaining in Japan today.
The castle lies right between the boundaries of what once were two countries of the Warring States period: Owari and Mino. Japan wasn't always the single country we know today but was dotted with a collection of different, independent nation-states. Inuyama Castle was a strategic position in the battles between warring countries, changing hands again and again between the Odas, Ikedas, and Ishikawas. Once the Edo period came around, Owari Province retainer Naruse Masanari became lord of the castle until the end of the Shogunate.

The view from the castle keep perched high on a cliff above the Kiso River is truly astounding. A porch surrounds the highest point of the keep, from which you can see far and wide across the Kiso River and all the way to Mt. Ontake in Gifu Prefecture, Gifu Castle, and the Nagoya Station building.

Inuyama Castle—a national treasure said to be Japan's oldest castle keep

Inuyama Castle came under the control of different lords as it was between the two former countries of Owari and Mino; and at the nexus of incredible wars to control the Japan of that time. The three great warrior generals of Japanese history—Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu—all fought to make the castle their own.
Gaze from the keep across the Nobi Plain where countless warriors fought for their own respective dreams of a new Japan.