S P O T ／ SPOT-028

Tomogashima Island Fortifications (Old Imperial Army Ruins)

友ヶ島旧日本軍要塞砲台跡ともがしまきゅうにほんぐんようさいほうだいあと

Twenty minutes by ferry from the fishing town of Kada, the uninhabited island of Tomogashima holds the ruins of a coastal defense fortress built by the Imperial Army beginning in 1884, intended to guard the Kii Channel against naval invasion and never tested in actual combat. The ruins — brick powder magazines, artillery emplacements, concrete command posts — have been consumed over decades by the island's subtropical forest, creating a landscape where military infrastructure and nature have merged into something that several million people recognize from Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky. Whether or not Miyazaki specifically had Tomogashima in mind, the visual correspondence is striking enough that the island serves as an unofficial pilgrimage site for fans of the film. It is also the setting of the anime Summer Time Rendering, and its selection as one of the "88 Anime Sacred Sites" in 2022 has brought new categories of visitor to a site that already had ample reason to attract them.