I suppose a picture is still worth a thousand words, and those pics prove that the complaints that the Japanese don't know how to build anything that lasts are unfounded.
That gateway took everything that man and mother nature could throw at it, and still shows the way to the Shinto shrines, even if they are gone. The spiritual significance of that gate holding up to unprecedented attack must have given many of the Japanese people a spiritual lift at their darkest hours.
I'd say that pretty damned impressive!