By Sachiko Shiota
If you’re past the age where summer means going to the pool, eating popsicles, and neglecting your homework until the week before school resumes, you have to admit, Japan this time of the year can be pretty unappealing. The relentlessly high temperatures and humidity often make being outside unbearable even well into the night. It’s even more punishing if you work in an office and wear a suit, not to mention your summer holidays are limited to a handful of days in August.
Under such circumstances, anyone would be tempted to spend their free time indoors, napping under the breeze of the air conditioner. No one in their right mind would voluntarily attend a fireworks event along with 900,000 people—or would they?
Starting from the latter half of July and continuing until the end of August, there’s nary a weekend without a fireworks festival going on somewhere in Tokyo, or the rest of Japan. They vary in scale, from short and sweet local festivals that fire around 500 shells, to the massive; such as the Sumida River Fireworks Festival which fires 20,000 shells and attracts the aforementioned 900,000 visitors every year.
Think fleetingly of fireworks and happy memories appear: hearing the amazing boom sound and seconds later, seeing the awe-inspiring explosion of color, camping out with a group of friends hours beforehand to secure a good spot, marveling at the endless patterns of girls’ yukata.
It’s these memories that come to mind when I’m asked if I want to see the fireworks, prompting me to answer, “Yes!” within seconds. I conveniently forget the crowds and the heat, or the year that I trekked over an hour to see the Sakura International Fireworks Festival (in Chiba) only to see it canceled because of rain. Or the year the fireworks operators soldiered on in iffy weather, the result being that you could only detect the glow of red and green that managed to bleed through the heavy clouds.
This summer so far, I’ve been to two festivals: the Adachi Fireworks Festival, and the Urayasu Fireworks Festival, the former of which I’ll write about here. Selected for the sole reason that it was the only day all my friends were free to meet up, we had no idea of its popularity. To commemorate the festival’s thirtieth year, the number of shells had been increased from 15,000 to 18,000.
The frenzy started at Kitasenju station, where guards and policemen were stationed outside the ticket gates, politely guiding the dozens of people milling around to the least crowded exit. It led to the shopping arcade, where stores had set up shop outside, selling obento and giving out paper fans and pens commemorating the festival.
The fireworks event itself took place near Arakawa River, with visitors settling down alongside the river and a lucky few watching from their speedboats. What seemed like a fairly spacious stretch of grass gradually filled up, and stragglers had to stand and watch for fear of stumbling over people in the dark.
Compared to my childhood, when my mother would pack onigiri and we’d sit on plastic woven mats, things sure had changed. Some families set up low tables with fairly elaborate meals, sitting facing straight ahead so as not to miss anything. The sight was something akin to looking into a neighbor’s house and seeing them eating in their kotatsu, eyes glued to the television screen. And in case you hadn’t taken advantage of the shops near the station, delivery boys from Domino’s walked around, selling pizza at inflated prices.
And what of the actual fireworks? Featuring a mix of the familiar (such as the peony shell) and the innovative, they certainly did not disappoint. Once again I was struck by how much fireworks had changed in the past decade or so, when the most predominantly used colors were red, green, and purple, and I never considered that fireworks would be anything other than round. Now we have pink, yellow, gold, lime green fireworks in the shape of Saturn, butterflies, and lopsided hearts! The heats garnered a collective “huh?” before someone pointed out that they were upside down.
Unusual for Japan, some of the sequences were synchronized with music, such as Holst’s “The Planets”, with meticulous precision. Since the area immediately surrounding the river was so flat, it was hard to imagine anyone getting a bad view, although I still envied the people who were watching from a Docomo blimp. The lights of the bridges and highways added an extra twinkle that made the overall scene almost surreal.
An hour and half later, it was all over and the mass exodus began. The roads back to the station were soon choked with people, and hundreds were still on the grass. But there was no grumpiness or frustration, it was easy to imagine people’s minds still filled with gold and glitter, replaying what they had just seen. In that moment, I understood why we put ourselves through all this: for the perfect fireworks experience. And this is why we’ll be back next year, in droves, weather and heat thrown to the wind.
