Human Firework Test Of Manhood

[Mulboyne]

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The director's blurb:

October 1999 - It's big, it's spectacular and it's extremely dangerous, but for the sons of Toyokawa, blowing themselves up is the only way to prove they're real men. Strolling through a bamboo forest a father and son are engaged in some serious male bonding. "It's pretty big," says 18 year-old Hidetaka in trepidation as his father stops to admire a bamboo stem of grand girth. "Lets take this one," he smirks with menace. Back at home, Hidetaka sets to work packing the pole with huge amounts of gunpowder. In a bizarre Shogun rite of passage he will have to hold it until it explodes. "It's an ancient tradition. Fathers have become addicted to it, it's one of the few chances they get to really communicate," explains one of Toyokawa's elders, who goes on to admit that men have died when the pipes explode. He himself has scars on his head and legs. On the night before the ceremony, his incendiary bamboo pipe prepared, Hidetaka is worried. "I'm scarred," he admits in private. His father tells us he'll be all right if he follows his wise instructions. And so in ceremonial dress the town's sons stand in line to perform this ancient rite. Suddenly they become human fireworks lost in a shower of sparks. One by one the pipes explode throwing each man backward in a thirty-second display of splendour that risks life and limb. "My legs are still shaking" stammers a blackened Hidetaka as he emerges from the smoky stage, "but finally my father will admit I'm a man!"

[Charles]

Yeah, they have similar manhood rituals in other cultures too.

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[kurohinge1]

From memory, the Tokyo Shock Boys' Guide to Japan (from about 2004) included this.

The Tokyo Shock Boys' GUIDE TO JAPAN

It is said that Japan's festivals are the gateway to the country's soul. Four Japanese performers take us on a journey of their discovery - and ours - as we uncover the lengths people will go to in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. The Tokyo Shock Boys are a group of four highly energetic and wacky performers who are known to live up to their name on stage...

In The Tokyo Shock Boys' Guide To Japan, we will journey - through Gyuzo, Nanbu, Danna and Sangojugo's eyes - to four unique festivals in the course of a year. They are the Hadaka Matsuri (or Naked Festival), where they the Shock Boys will tussle with 10,000 nearly naked men in loincloths to touch one naked holy man]Onbashira[/B] (Giant Log) Festival, where they will join the brave people who will ride a ten ton log down a steep slope; the Toyohashi Tezutsuhanabi (Handheld Fireworks) Festival, a fireworks festival where participants release the fireworks with their bare hands; and the Kishiwada Danjiri (Float) Festival, where teams of kimono-clad men pull giant unwieldy wooden floats through the medieval town's narrow and winding streets at breakneck pace . . . more

Here' a website with information about 26 festivals in Japan.

I'd like to see the Soma-Nomaoi Festival in Haramachi, one year. Has anyone seen it?




A Yabusame (mounted archery) one (apparently held at various places) also sounds interesting. Any FG reports?

[Taro Toporific]

... Hadaka Matsuri (or Naked Festival), where ... 10,000 nearly naked men in loincloths to touch one naked holy man Onbashira

It’s near the coldest day of the year so it must be time…
…for the Hadaka Matsuri aka Naked Festival at Saidaiji Temple in Okayama, where you can tussle with 10,000 nearly naked drunk men in fundoshi to touch the delegated naked "holy man."

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[wagyl]

1. We need an on the ground report from the Toyokawa Fireworks. I wonder who is closest, and has free time?

2. That Hadaka Matsuri description sounded different from what I have heard, and I think it might be a translation or editing (or WTF Japan is craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayzeeeeeeeee) error which should not be perpetuated here. The following description from the Tourism Organisation matches other accounts:

Saidai-ji Eyo Hadaka Matsuri
Okayama
A mysterious and exciting night festival.
Almost fully-naked men compete for good luck charms.

One of the three most eccentric festivals of Japan. Nine thousand men wearing only loincloths struggle fiercely with one another over a pair of lucky sacred sticks measuring 4 cm in diameter and 20 cm in length, thrown into the crowd by the priest from a window 4 m up. Anyone who luckily gets hold of the shingi and thrusts them upright in a wooden measuring box known as a masu which is heaped with rice is called the lucky man, and is blessed with a year of happiness.