July 9, 2007: Amazing model castle

It's Neatorama collaboration Monday!



When you take a quick look at the above, you say, ah, a fine castle dwelling in the East. But then you look again, and it's not quite right; what's with that stuff in the foreground?



That's because it's not a castle, but a huge model of one, made by this gent.

Axlrosen finds this blog entry at Japan Probe which points to Japan Times, which has more images of this guy and his accomplishment. Y'see, he's spent a large portion of his life building this.

His wife, Ikuko, 66, gave him a book containing photographs of the castle on his 47th birthday. He saw a drawing of the castle in the book and made up his mind to build a replica.

Imura bought a plot of land in the town of Enza in Ise, which has a beautiful view of mountains unhindered by the sight of power lines -- a setting he thought would be perfect for the replica.

He moved to the town and began building the model in 1989, using experience he gained as a joiner during his youth.

After retiring at age 60, Imura devoted his life to building the replica.

Men build models; it's what we do, for some unknown reason. But today I think we admit that Imura is king of the model builders.

Be sure to visit Neatorama for more neato items all the time!

Are they getting ready to film another Gojira movie?

Where is Godzilla when you need him.

before I read the caption, I thought it was going to say that it was part of a mini-golf course

1:23 scale? That's odd.

The replica is about 160 sq. meters, with the main keep about 2.2 meters high. It cost Imura about 18 million yen to build. He made sure every detail corresponds to the original, including the curved lines of the castle's graceful roofs, its white walls, intricately combined connecting turret, stone walls and moat.

These Barbie dollhouses are getting out of control.

This just in: someone stole the model of the castle and replaced it with an exact replica.

To quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "It's only a model."

Looked like a Putt-Putt Golf place in the first pic..

All that nice work then crap looking fluorescent astroturf . DOH!

Perhaps he should have bought a spirit level too. Or is the original castle all out of plumb like that?

The worst part about that model is the terrifying tiny little ninjas that keep attacking it and burning it to the ground.

It's really actual sized. That's just a REALLY tall Japanese dude.

Is that Lopan in the second pic?

/obscure?

Lindsey Lopan? :D

todd brannigan wrote:

Is that Lopan in the second pic?

Indeed!!

Shawnee123;362450 wrote:

It's really actual sized. That's just a REALLY tall Japanese dude.

After the war, their nutritional standards were raised. Now they're about our size like the guy in the picture. You won't ever see any real footage of infantry battles, because Mcarther was so embarassed about getting pwnd by liliputians.

This is how The Borrowers do it in Japan non of that living under the floor boards crap, and for the Americans out there I suggest you search for "The Borrowers" for a better understanding of my implied pun

Plenty of Americans knew about the Borrowers, even before the movie.

You mean The Littles? I loved that cartoon. (Based off the book The Borrowers if I remember right.)