Hanabi Explosion Handmade Fire Flower Crazy Fun Time!

As rainy season has officially cast the last of its relentless droplets upon Japan, the days have morphed from morbidly humid to ovenly hot. Despite the afternoons reaching 36°C, coming from Texas, I am finding them fairly bearable, thanks in no small part to now having AC. The worst is usually over by 3pm, and by 6-7pm Kota has cooled down a good ten degrees, complete with a warm summer breeze as dusk makes its sojourn across the sky.

As if to flaunt the certainty that the rains have subsided for now, many towns in Japan have hanabi festivals. While hanami means “fireworks,” I prefer the segmented and poetic translation of “fire flowers.’” So far I have attended hanabi festivals in three different towns; Betenjima, Toyokawa, and Fukuroi.

The Bentenjima and Fukuroi Festivals

These festivals were similar to what you might expect in America, except taken up a notch. The secret to putting on incredible hanabi displays? Make it an unofficial corporate competition. Japanese companies sponsor segments of the fireworks shows, so the ones that really want to impress the crowds spend hundreds of thousands of yen on hiring pyrotechnicians and engineers that develop and put together the best 5-15min segment they can. The results are phenomenal, and include fire flowers that explode in the shapes of fish, smiley faces, cats, seashells, and even popular characters. Sometimes their trajectory changes direction halfway through the explosion, and some that leave trails so long they look like giant spiraling columns as they fall to the ground.

Since I don’t have a camera that is even halfway decent at taking fireworks photos, Click any of the referenced phot0s below to see the Japan Fireworks Artists Association gallery.

The Toyokawa Festival

This festival was completely different from anything I'd seen before, as it was part of a more traditional festival at the local shrine. These fireworks were called tezutsu hanabi, though smaller, they are as equally impressive for other reasons. Think sparklers...for Godzilla?

Each person who lights a firework in this festival must have 3 things:

1. patience and resources to make their own firework.

2. insurance specifically covering them for this type of activity.

3. Balls to set the thing off and hold it.

Making tezutsu hanabi consists of locating a large piece of bamboo, hollowing it out, wrapping it with rope, putting cloth and high exploding gunpowder at the bottom, then filling the rest with regular gunpowder. As the translation implies, they are held close to the body when they are ignited, with sparks streaming out of the bamboo inches away from their face. Crazy.

Since the holder is often attributed with having great strength and courage, it was traditionally a male-only kind of event. Recently though, women have started participating as well. Since facial damage is considered, perhaps unfairly, a more severe setback for women, their insurance premiums are higher. However, they in turn draw everyone's attention when their names are announced and are often applauded and cheered for much more than the men as their firework makes its final 'boom.'