... The 1200-year-old Naked Festival, celebrated annually ... in February ... starts with one supremely hapless gentleman who is crowned the festival's Spiritman.
Spiritman undergoes days of ritual purification, including a full body shave, then, in the middle of winter, he is stripped naked and sent out to scamper through the city streets in front of 300,000 onlookers. En route, 9000 men dressed in bum-baring loincloths try frantically to touch him (and by touch, I mean push, pummel and pulverise) in the belief that Spiritman will absorb all their bad luck.
These frivolities continue for several hours until Spiritman staggers into Konomiya Shrine where, for another hour or so, he's further pushed, pummelled and pulverised by a sake-fortified mob. If he's still compos, Spiritman then dons some clothes and thanks the shrine's deity before being booted out of the city to rid it of misfortune.
Nominations are now open
From the pics in the Hook Up Forum, Taro's melon would appear to have a headstart in the ritual purification and make him an obvious nominee ...
Good luck buddy - run like the wind !
