The other castles I have seen in Japan, Wakayama and Osaka castles, have been more picturesque and interesting from the outside, only because both had been completely destroyed in WWII and been rebuilt. The restored Japanese castles' keeps have never been faithfully reproduced with those two castles.

This photo shows the inside of the first floor of the keep. Rifles were hung on the pegs on the right wall. Despite its elegant exterior, the interior makes very good use of the space, with hidden doors, ladders, passageways and weaponry.

In this picture you can see the Ishiuchi-dana, the top floor of the donjon. From here, soldiers inside the keep could dump boiling oil, rocks, or shoot arrows or guns at climbing soldiers.

This is one of a series of "turrets" (a two or three-storied defensive tower). This particular one connected the east minor donjon with the main donjon.

This is "'Nu'-no-mon Gate", the only three-storied gate in the castle. The gate has been worked and reinforced with iron and the top of the gate-wall is fortified with devices for dropping stones onto enemies.

Along every wall of the keep and the outer walls are slits for guns and arrows. Himeji castle towers above the city, and from the keep you can see for miles and miles around.

This two-storied gate is the "Bizen-mon Gate", key defensive point for entrance to the Bizen-maru compound, where the lord's mansion was situated.