Yagura

Yagura (櫓, 矢倉?) is the Japanese word for: "tower", "turret", "keep", "scaffold". The word is most often seen in reference to structures within Japanese castle compounds, but can be used in a variety of other situations as well. The bandstand tower erected for Bon Festival is often called a yagura, as are similar structures used in other festivals. Yagura-daiko, that is, taiko drumming from atop a yagura is a traditional part of professional sumo competitions.

The term originally derives from the use of fortress towers as arrow (矢, ya) storehouses (倉, kura), and was thus originally written as 矢倉. Today, modern towers such as skyscrapers or communications towers are almost exclusively referred to or named using the English-derived word tawā (タワー), and not yagura.