Ikebukuro Street Jazz – Revisited

Two and a half years ago I posted about one of the great joys of Tokyo, the live jazz street bands that play for free outside some of the major stations, like this band. A couple of weeks ago I happened to see them again in the very same spot, some new members, but the fantastic drummer was still there! You can see a short 45 second clip of him in this video. Before I got my camera ready another photographer (blogger perhaps?) started shooting in front of me. It’s always fun to see other photographers at work!

Omikoshi On Crowded Streets

Summer is over and on comes the sad feeling of not being able to enjoy many more festivals. I know I have probably visited more festivals than 99.9% of the population of Japan this year, but I still crave more. Luckily the big one is coming up soon, the massive Kawagoe Matsuri that I have blogged so much about in the last few years. It’s on this weekend in Saitama prefecture’s Kawagoe City, and if you can only attend one single Japanese festival in your life, this might well be the one to aim for! It’s an easy train ride from Tokyo so there’s no excuse if you’re anywhere near the Kanto area. It’s going to be very very crowded, so if this weeks bad weather continues you might be in for a lucky break, as rain always means fewer people. Still, I wouldn’t expect less than a million people crowded into the narrow streets of Hon-Kawagoe! Talking about crowded streets, here’s a few photos I took at Ikebukuro’s Fukuro Matsuri a month ago. You don’t want to stand in the way of these omikoshi teams!

Tipping the Omikoshi – Fukuro Matsuri

Last weekend we had the big Fukuro Matsuri here in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district. Ikebukuro has a bit of a reputation for being one of the “wilder” areas of Tokyo (it’s still much safer than any small town in Europe on a Sunday afternoon) but they really do have a slightly more aggressive way of handling their omikoshi, the big portable shrines carried in processions on festival days to honor the gods and bless the community. At certain points during the procession the omikoshi stops, despite its hundreds of kilos in weight, gets thrown in the air and then tipped wildly left to right. Some other festivals do this too, but in Ikebukuro they do it faster: the series of eight photos is taken in less than three seconds, with most of the time spent halting the omikoshi from falling to the ground, and crushing one or several of the brave people who have taken a position right beneath it. I have no idea how they can do that without peeing themselves in fear as the shrine comes crashing down on top of them and then suddenly pulls them up as it goes in the other direction. I managed to catch two of the local braves at the end of their near death experience, I wish I had managed to get a shot of where they are almost bent double under the shrine! The Fukuro Matsuri (Fukuro being a play on the name of the area, Ikebukuro, and means owl) takes place every year at the end of September and again a week later with a massive yosakoi dance festival. If you are into Yosakoi, this is one of the three major yosakoi festivals of the greater Tokyo area. If you are in Tokyo over the weekend, you know where to go!