A parade of some sort that I ran into in Kyoto

5 comments

1. bro lookin like the firecracker from clash royale

2. He is the boss of the Kyoto lvl, you need to fight.

3. He looks ready to throw down, anime style.

4. Huge Blunt Festival 2023

5. For those curious and OP;

   His shirt (haori // 羽織) says Miyamoto-gumi (宮本組), which was Yasaka jinja’s first organization dedicated to representing local shinto parishioners. Yasaka jinja was previously referred to as Gion jinja due to its’ location in Gion, Kyoto, and the festival’s origin that I will describe next.

   This picture was taken during one of Japan’s most famous and well-known festivals, the Gion Festival (Gion Matsuri // 祇園祭), which takes place every July in Kyoto. It was traditionally held to combat epidemics (religiously) and purify the city.

   This particular part of the festival is called the Mikoshi Arai ceremony (神輿洗式) and involves taking the portable shrines (mikoshi // 神輿) of Yasaka jinja to the nearby Kamo river to purify them to make them suitable to then carry the deities of Yasaka jinja (kami // 神, specifically Susanoo // スサノオ, Kushinadahime // クシナダヒメ, and Susanoo’s eight children.) These bamboo torches are lit and carried to purify the path ahead of the mikoshi themselves.

   This picture is probably a few years old because although the festival wasn’t canceled due to COVID, masks were ubiquitous for the 2020-2022 iterations.