By Isla Quinn
Wide street. Black walls. Branches hanging low over both. Kakunodate sits in Semboku, Akita Prefecture, in the north of Honshu, and its samurai quarter is the reason people come.
A castle town, still laid out like one
Japan Travel, a travel website, calls Kakunodate a former castle town and says its appearance is relatively the same as when it was founded in 1620. The same page says the castle no longer exists, and Wikipedia, which anyone can edit, lists “ruins” of Kakunodate Castle among the landmarks. Wikipedia adds that Kakunodate was a separate town until 20 September 2005, when it merged with Tazawako and Nishiki to form the city of Semboku. It gives the old nickname as “the little Kyoto of Tōhoku”.
The town has two parts, according to Japan Travel: a samurai district and a merchant district. Japan Guide, an independent travel website, says the samurai district once housed about 80 families and begins at the Yoko-machi intersection. Its streets are wide and its courtyards large.
The trees
Japan Guide says dozens of weeping cherry trees shade the district and bloom in early May. Another Japan Guide page says that during the Edo period local samurai families imported weeping cherries from Kyoto, partly to outdo one another with the most beautiful trees. Japan Travel dates the planting to the 17th century. Japan Guide also says several hundred somei yoshino cherries were planted later along the Hinokinai River, and that around one million people visit the cherry blossom festival each year, usually at its best in Golden Week.
That is the famous season. Japan Travel notes that summer brings greenery, autumn red, yellow and orange leaves, and winter snow against the black-walled houses. Wikipedia mentions a winter “fire and snow” festival with kamakura snow domes but gives no dates, so check locally. Our reading: the district is built for bare-branch months as much as blossom, because the walls and the white ground do the work.
Six houses
Both travel sites say six former samurai houses are open to the public. Japan Guide picks out two. The Aoyagi house is a complex of several buildings with museum collections, a garden and displays in English and Japanese. The Ishiguro house is smaller to visit because the family still lives in most of it; the open part holds samurai armour and clothing, anatomical drawings and studies, and a well-preserved storeroom. Japan Guide adds that the Iwahashi house, a smaller middle-class home, can be viewed only from outside, and that the present Kawarada house, a senior vassal’s residence, dates to 1891.
Cherry bark
The town’s best-known craft is kabazaiku, work in cherry bark. The Semboku city website, a municipal tourism page, says it was introduced to Kakunodate in the 1780s by a samurai retainer, Fujimura Hikoroku, whose dates are unknown. It began as a folkcraft, made mainly by lower-ranking samurai to earn extra income, and became a stable industry with professional artisans and wholesalers in the early twentieth century. The bark comes from the yamazakura, a mountain cherry. The city page says it is harvested and rested for three years, and that the outer layer is shaved off to show the grain.
The city page says kabazaiku was designated a “Traditional Craft of Japan” in 1978 and that the museum opened shortly after. Japan Travel says the museum opened in 1978. Japan Special Traveler, a promotional travel guide, calls the craft 200 years old; the city page’s 1780s start would make it a little older. We report all three and do not choose.
Getting there
Japan Travel says the district is served by the Akita Shinkansen and is about a 20-minute walk from Kakunodate Station on the Tazawako Line. Japan Guide gives the same walk or a short taxi ride from JR Kakunodate Station. The city page gives a 20-minute walk from the station to the bark museum.
Dates in order
- 1620: town founded, according to Japan Travel.
- 1780s: cherry bark work introduced, according to the Semboku city website.
- 1891: present Kawarada house, according to Japan Guide.
- Early twentieth century: kabazaiku becomes a stable industry, according to the city website.
- 1978: designated a Traditional Craft of Japan, according to the city website.
- 20 September 2005: merger into Semboku, according to Wikipedia.
What kind of sources these are
Two pages from Japan Guide, an independent travel website (one updated in March 2025, one in April 2020); Japan Travel, a travel website; the Semboku city tourism page; Wikipedia; and one promotional travel guide.
What we left out
Prices, opening hours, restaurant listings, workshop booking details and the founder’s name, which we found only in a personal travel blog.
Quick answers
Why is Kakunodate called a samurai town?
According to Japan Guide, its samurai district once housed about 80 families, and six of the remaining samurai houses are open to the public.
When do the weeping cherries bloom in Kakunodate?
Japan Guide, a travel website, says the weeping cherry trees in the samurai district bloom in early May.
What is kabazaiku?
The Semboku city website describes it as cherry bark work, introduced to Kakunodate in the 1780s and designated a Traditional Craft of Japan in 1978.
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