Kagurazaka Awaodori Beauties

The start of the Awaodori festival season is still many months away but it’s never too early to start promoting some of the many teams that will brighten our festivals in the summer to come! Here’s a mix of beauties of different ages from three different dance teams, the Daikonren, the Koseinenkinbyouinren and the famous Tokyo Tensuiren.

The Kotengu – Tenguren Awaodori in Kagarazuka

Last weekend was mini Awaodori heaven for us who have seen the light! There’s basically three events that can’t be missed on the Awaodori calendar, the main event in Tokushima, the two day massive festival in Koenji (both in August) and this one, the last weekend of July when the whole of the Kanto region goes Awaodori crazy. There were festivals all from Kanagawa to Chiba with Awaodori performances, with several going on in greater Tokyo at the same time. Too bad you can only be at one place at a time! So I spent Friday at the parade in Kagurazaka (神楽坂), mainly because I wanted a chance to see two of my favorite teams perform at the same time but also because Kagurazaka has a really good mix of dedicated teams and beginners. One of the most famous teams at Kagurazaka must be the Tenguren (天狗連), using the mythical winged tengu demon/spirit as their symbol. Tenguren has a very cute and dedicated kids troupe called Kotengu (小天狗), or the mini-tengu. In a few years I hope to see these kids graduated and moved up to the regular Tenguren troupe! I love the way Japanese society works in which they send the youngest and most inexperienced members out first, to really boost their confidence and skill – not only in Awaodori but also in business! Often in large Japanese corporations you’ll meet very junior members participating in very large and important business projects.

Not only are these kotengu very cute, they also have these fantastic green and white costumes with what I call the rabbit ears headband! I am sure there is a proper name for this style of headband. Enjoy!

Mitama Matsuri – Painting Wind Chimes

Here are some more photos of the second evening of the huge Mitama Matsuri at the Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo. These beautiful ladies were fully concentrated on the task of painting their wind chimes, while the festival rages on behind them (see the guys behind them taking photos). I took a similar image last year, it could be fun to compare maybe. I know the yellow/red tone of these photos might not be popular with other photographers, but I like it! It reminds me of how hot it was, so to me it makes the photos better. Maybe not in a technical sense though.

There was only one male customer painting when I took these pictures, and his daughter had the coolest sun glasses I have seen in a long while! Don’t you agree? I wish I could be that stylish! Today is the last day of the Mitama Matsuri, so make sure you go!

Mitama Matsuri – Yasukuni Shrine

It’s started – the massive Mitama Matsuri, a huge festival held every year at the Yasukuni Shrine in Kudanshita, central Tokyo. According to authorities there’s supposed to be at least 300 000 people attending the four day event (today was only the second day) but today was much more crowded than anything Mitama Matsuri I have ever seen before. I think this year will see a record number of visitors, maybe even 400 000! It might not sound much compared to the really big festivals like the millions of people who visit the Sanja Matsuri in Asakusa, but the area where this is held is so much smaller.

It was incredibly crowded and I had to fight every step to keep up with the omikoshi. At some points we all just go stuck and I had time to turn my camera on the crowds instead. Even the kids high on their father’s shoulders had to stretch to get a good view of the omikoshi, and I sure wasn’t the only one taking photos, although probably the worst looking after trying to keep up with the omikoshi on one of the hottest and muggiest days of the year so far. You can see just how hot it is by looking at the man in the fourth picture! As I took this he was trying to make sense of his beer drinking friend that was wildly trying to tell him that he should have his photo taken by me. After the message got through he shot me the winning smile of the day, although at that point I was too exhausted to notice my focus had gone way off. Well, you can’t get the picture every time!

In the fifth picture (fifth file actually) you can see that I had to make use of any temporary little gap to try and get a glimpse of the omikoshi at most points. The closer we were getting to the main shrine the more lantern lines and power chords had to be negotiated, and like a good crowd we all roared with approval when they managed to stay clear of the lines by making everyone bend down with the omikoshi at just the right moment.

Mitama matsuri is on again on Sunday and Monday (which is a public holiday in Japan), so if you are in Tokyo I really recommend going. Cultural performances start at 10 in the morning but the main festival starts up at 18, so you can split it into two halves with a long lunch break! I really recommend that you go early to see all those unusual traditional dances and performance you almost never get a chance to see otherwise, like iaido and eco period dances! Even ballet I think! You can get to Yasukuni Shrine by Kudanshita or Iidabashi stations, together they serve about half of all the major train and subway lines in Tokyo, so you have no excuses to be lazy this weekend!