Included in your admission ticket to Inuyama-jō are the following two collections.
One block south of Haritsuna Jinja and Sankō-Inari Jinja, the Marionette contains a small display of Edo- and Meiji-era puppets. On Saturday and Sunday you can see the wooden characters in action (at 10.30am and 2pm).
To see the puppets as they were meant to be used, visit during Inuyama Matsuri (Inuyama Festival, on the first Saturday and Sunday in April; a scaled-down version is on the fourth Saturday in October), designated an Intangible Cultural Asset by the Japanese government. Dating back to 1635, the festival features a parade of 13 three-tiered floats decked out with lanterns and karakuri, which perform to music.
Nearby, the Inuyama Castle Historical Museum has two of the festival floats on display. Four other floats are on exhibit at Dondenkan , a few blocks south, accessed via a street of wood-built buildings.
