Photo/Illutration The gold "shachihoko" on the rooftop of Nagoya Castle’s main keep in 2023 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

NAGOYA—The famed “rebirth” of a pair of 17th century gold “shachihoko” tiger-fish ornaments on Nagoya Castle that were smashed in World War II is likely false.

Misako Asahi, a curator at the Nagoya Castle Research Center, came across a document that seems to debunk the feel-good story during the postwar reconstruction period.

“It was shocking, but it’s nobody’s fault,” she said. “It is one of the damages caused by the war.”

The gold shachihoko were placed on the rooftop of Nagoya Castle’s main keep when it was built in 1612 to show off the authority of the Tokugawa family in the central Japan region.

In 1873, the shachihoko were showcased at the Vienna World Expo and attracted international attention.

However, on May 14, 1945, a U.S. air raid on the city hit the castle.

The male shachihoko on the northern side of the rooftop was destroyed, while the female one on the southern side was severely damaged.

After the war ended, city government employees collected some of the cinders of shachihoko that were scattered around the castle and stored them at a municipal facility. However, most of the cinders remained on the ground and were collected by occupation forces.

In 1959, Japan enacted the Treatment of Requisitioned Precious Metals Law. Based on this law, the Nagoya city government asked the finance minister to arrange the return of the gold cinders.

The Japanese government supposedly gained the cinders of alloyed gold from the Americans and sent the metal to the city in 1967.

By that time, Nagoya Castle was already rebuilt, and a new pair of golden shachihoko decorated the rooftop.

The city decided to process the returned material into a gold “chagama” tea kettle and a small shachihoko for use as the crown of a pole for the Nagoya city flag.

When the crown was created, The Asahi Shimbun reported, “The golden shachihoko on the rooftop of the main keep of Nagoya Castle were burned in the war but they were reborn into a product 1/200th the original size.”

However, curator Asahi said the alloyed gold had nothing to do with the gold shachihoko burned in the war.

While studying the appearance, structure and locations of the original shachihoko, she came across a document among a pile of papers in a storage room at the castle.

The document seemed to be a response from the Finance Ministry in 1966 to a question from the city before the alloyed gold was returned.

Nagoya city wanted to know why the amount of alloyed gold scheduled for return was so small.

The letter read, “Currently, we, the central government, do not possess the alloyed gold bullion of the same quality and weight as the shachihoko, so we decided to hand over other alloyed gold of the same estimated value.”

Asahi realized if the document was authentic, the returned metal was not from the original shachihoko.

So, what happened to the gold of the shachihoko? Asahi said the truth is unknown.

“The pair of golden shachihoko had long been a symbol of Nagoya city. So, city residents and those involved wished that they still existed regardless of their form. This wish may have led to the misunderstanding,” she said.

She added, “The story that the first pair of golden shachihoko were returned to the city was so famous that nobody tried to examine if it was true.”

However, she said there is no denying that the tea kettle and the flag crown are valuable materials that symbolize the postwar era.

“We need to add explanations about the golden tea kettle in a way that visitors won’t misunderstand when it is displayed,” Takafumi Segawa, deputy director of the Nagoya Castle Research Center, said.

Asahi has written about the history of the golden shachihoko in the bulletin of Nagoya Castle Research Center Vol. 6, available in Japanese at <https://www.nagoyajo.city.nagoya.jp/center/-6.html>.

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