Akita's Kanto Matsuri

Akita prefecture’s cultural fame comes from its annual lantern festival known as Kanto Matsuri. My visit conveniently coincided with it so we went up to Akita City last night.

We were really early so I spent a lot of time adoring all the women who were wearing yukatas. A yukata is like the summer version of a kimono. There are some slight design differences, but the most noticeable change for the women is the lighter fabric. They aren’t worn often in Okinawa (I’ve seen them only once), so it was a big deal for me. It’s also voluntary for the women to wear them, so it was pretty awesome to see so many ladies getting into the spirit.

Some men wear a men's version of the yukata, which makes for a very cool couple in my book.

[As if little Japanese girls weren't already cute enough]

The festival extended for 12-15 blocks and brought in many tens of thousands of people (they claim over a million for the three-day period). Just before dusk huge groups of ladies streamed onto the street and all performed the same dances to the same music for about 45 minutes. We watched one JET English teacher participate with her group, which was really neat.

[These flute players and drummers went nonstop during the 15-minute performance intervals (at which point everybody shifted a block so the spectators could see different groups)]

Just after dusk the streets empty of ladies and fill with trucks pulling trailers with huge taiko drums followed by troupes of kids playing flutes and singing followed by the lantern carriers. The lanterns are mounted on big bamboo structures that resemble a sail. They are lit by candles. The bamboo is raised by a couple of guys, then, when it’s stable, it’s raised again and a 4-5’ bamboo pole is added to the bottom. They’ll do this a couple times and, if they’re gutsy, keep going. The most added poles we saw were nine, which put the top of the whole lantern ‘sail’ about 60-70 feet off the ground. Freakin’ amazing, especially when they balance the whole thing on their palm or forehead and battle wind gusts. Do they ever fall? Absolutely! We saw about a dozen crash, but no major injuries or deaths. Usually the candles go out en route to the ground, but that doesn’t keep future victims from screaming.

[Lanterns as far as the eye could see in both directions]