023.Nebuta 01.Aomori Nebuta (Japan)

2023-08-03

During one week at the beginning of August, the delight of Nebuta fills Aomori city. Before Covid 19, tourists more than 3 million visit this big festival, and performing teams have hundreds of members for each one at maximum. In 2011 when I visited, 22 large-scale nebuta floats sponsored by large companies and organizations, and 19 medium-sized and small-scale nebuta floats sponsored by neighborhood associations, children's associations, and high schools participated.

See the Nebuta float sponsored by Prefectural Nebuta Executive Committee in 2011. It was titled with "Guān Yǔ and Old Huáng Zhōng" based on a Chinese legend, and the Nebuta artist Gako Oshiro produced.

At 7:00 p.m., a festival started under the sky where brightness remained. The lead of each team was a group of musical accompaniment. The melody of the flute plays a pity tone. But, since the rhythm, which drums and the Jangara beat, was well articulated, the whole tune sounded quite forcefully.

A float as the main performance appeared in the next. As it became darker, the form of the floats with a theme based on the Kabuki or a historical fact became vivid and brought to life. The location of the prefectural capital enabled the support of companies that placed a branch. Therefore, the cost of a big float of the Aomori Nebuta was said to be 20 million Japanese yen per set, and the frame by the combination of light steel, wood, bamboo and wire forms a complicated model covered with Japanese paper.

At the moment when a Nebuta float pulled to the menfolk came running toward spectators at full speed, I felt the strength most. Pulling a 4-ton of float was a big task for about 20 persons, and they dashed aslant from one side to the other side of a wide street. Just before colliding against spectator seats, they braced their legs to stop the float, and soon, without taking breath, they changed the course 90 degrees and went to the opposite side. It was a repetition of the short-distance running of 45 meters.

By a float and the menfolk that were coming to the spectator seats at full speed so that those might be about to jump into them, the adrenalin of spectators went up. At the moment when the float carried out the quick stop just before the rope stretched on the sidewalk, their absurd energy with excessive force got down to the spectators on the seat. They were filled with energy. That gave vigor to them.

At last, the Haneto (that means jumping people) appeared calling the famous shout "Rasserah”. They hopped madly on one leg with the vivid flower hat on the head and the blue underskirt under the summer kimono. The dance is not difficult but discharges energy.

Aomori, where a severe and long winter continues, gives a dark impression, but the strength of the Aomori Nebuta corrected my prejudice. Aomori was also the stage of the famous movie "Aoi Sanmyaku (Blue Mountain Range)”, which became a symbol of a bright and free society brought with the end of World War II. Actually, Aomori may be a brilliant place where the brilliance shut up during the long winter reappears with tremendous power in the summer.

Once the Aomori Nebuta floats had emphasized height. The present floats were produced with the height possible to pass under the signal and electric wire without operation. Meanwhile, a horizontal spread with 9-meter was defined not by the width of wide streets as the parade route but the width between the electric poles on both sides of a road which a float passes to return to a warehouse. The townscape decided the height and the width of Aomori Nebuta floats. However, a human wants to build to the maximum size. I witnessed that a float could not pass through between the electric poles at a return path with a slight deviation, and the arm of Nebuta came off.