Statue of Kusunoki Masashige

Workers spent three grueling years perfecting what you see before you... this towering bronze warrior required a revolutionary casting technique never before attempted in Japan. As you stand here in Kokyo Gaien National Garden, just steps from Nijubashi Bridge, you're witnessing the first large-scale statue in Japanese history cast section by section rather than in one piece. The master craftsman Sessei Okazaki actually traveled at his own expense to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, desperate to solve an engineering nightmare. This four-meter-tall monument of Kusunoki Masashige and his war horse was simply too massive and detailed for traditional Japanese casting methods. That eureka moment came when sunlight revealed a hidden seam on an American statue, teaching Okazaki the secret of sectional casting that would revolutionize Japanese bronze work forever. Look closely at the horse beneath this legendary samurai... it required seven separate castings for the body, neck, four legs, and tail before being assembled into this seamless masterpiece. The pure bronze construction made it so extraordinarily heavy that it survived the devastating Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 completely unscathed, while lighter structures around it crumbled. This is Kusunoki Masashige frozen in his most poignant moment... waiting for Emperor Go-Daigo's return from exile in 1333, unaware that his unwavering loyalty would lead him to ritual suicide just three years later at the Battle of Minatogawa, uttering those immortal words: "Would that I had seven lives to give for my emperor!"