About Aomori Nebuta Matsuri

Nebuta Matsuri has been running in Aomori City every August since the early postwar years, and the festival was formally designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan in 1980. The origins go back further still, to Tanabata lantern customs and the legend of a general who used giant illuminated figures to lure enemy troops out of hiding. Whether that story is history or folklore, the floats themselves carry real weight. Each one takes a master nebuta-shi and a team of apprentices the better part of a year to complete, and when they finally roll out onto the circuit on the evening of August 2, the crowd feels it.

The festival runs for six days across downtown Aomori City and the port. Evening parades on August 2 through 6 begin at around 18:45 and move through the main circuit, with the haneto dancers running alongside every float, leaping and chanting 'Rassera!' to the beat of taiko drums and the high, insistent cry of the flute. August 2 and 3 also feature children's and community nebuta, which are smaller in scale but no less carefully made. The daytime parade on August 7 starts around 13:00 and is the only chance to see the floats in natural light. That evening, from 19:15 to 21:00, the prize-winning floats are loaded onto boats for the sea procession across Aomori Bay, with fireworks launched overhead.