Northern Lights: the return of Tohoku’s biggest festivals
竿灯祭り・ねぶた祭り
Akita & Aomori 秋田県・青森県
Tohoku, Japan 東北 日本
Following a three-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, matsuri have made their way back into the roster of summer activities in Japan, drawing big crowds despite the sweltering heat and humidity.
It’s in Tohoku where some of the most iconic festivals in Japan are held, and the period of time where working wasn’t allowed while awaiting a visa change called for an initial visit to the region.
JR East offers the Tohoku Area Pass, which covers much of the public transport in the area, including Shinkansen, and is one of only two regional passes that can be bought by non-Japanese residents
At the time, the pass was 20,000 yen for 5 days, though it has increased to 30,000 yen since October 1st of this year.
The pass took me from Tokyo Station out to Sendai for an initial stop (a story for another post), and from there to Akita City in the prefecture of the same name. This city is home to the Kanto Festival, one of the three major matsuri of Tohoku alongside Aomori’s Nebuta Festival and Sendai’s Tanabata Festival, which all occur around the same time during the summer.
The Kanto Festival is characterized by the precession of lantern-adorned, hand-carried floats. It’s not necessarily the floats themselves that garner the most attention, however; instead, it’s the unique way that they’re handled: fairly large and heavy yet played around with with the same energy of a zoomer with a tech deck.
You’ll see float handlers balancing the poles on one hand, tied to their obi-belts, or even on their foreheads on occasion. Accidents do happen, and pictures are taken, but the scene of these illuminated floats rolling up and down the main road is one that fills the Akita air with wild fanfare, along with the pounding taiko and whistling fue.
Also, fun fact: you’re greeted at Akita Station with this enormous plush doll of an Akita dog, complete with the eye-catching and meticulous detail of its butthole. Reason enough to come out all this way if we’re being honest.
Moving up north, right under Hokkaido, Aomori City is home to the Nebuta Festival, one of the most well-known matsuri in the country.
Nebuta is big and long (?), with the main roads of the city closed off nightly for 5 days so that the hand-pushed precession of large, colorful, paper-mache floats built in the form of historic figures and mythical Japanese creatures can make their way through the winding parade route. The floats are illuminated from the inside and glow against the nighttime scenery.
Of course, no festival in Japan is complete without the countless food stalls scattered throughout the grounds, with the obligatory baseball cap-sporting, tattooed men with questionable connections to certain organizations tossing yakisoba in the back.
Also stick around to see awkward, yet often wholesome, interactions between the locals and intoxicated U.S. Air Force guys visiting from the nearby military base.
