Each autumn, tons of of Japanese folks come collectively and sprint down streets whereas pulling ornate wood floats within the form of shrines, a practice referred to as danjiri.
However latest deaths and accidents are feeding nervousness concerning the ritual and bringing a somber observe to the top of the mid-autumn competition season.
Osaka’s police division reported two deaths and a number of other accidents in danjiri festivals within the cities of Izumiotsu and Izumisano on Oct. 10. In each situations, the floats, which weigh a number of tons, toppled over whereas turning corners, crushing members who had been standing on the aspect.
As a result of danjiri performances are rooted in spiritual custom, a board of group leaders, fairly than the police, decides the foundations and security protocols. The native police are investigating the circumstances of the deaths, however most organizers have stopped wanting abolishing the sharp turns or calling for them to be taken extra slowly.
“Heatstroke, falls and bone fractures are frequent occurrences right here yearly — although, ideally, nobody ought to get damage,” stated Katsunori Fujita, 71, a md of the liaison council in Izumiotsu, who helps resolve on the foundations for the parades in his district.
Mr. Fujita witnessed the accident in Izumiotsu as he patrolled as a volunteer. He stated he would proceed imposing security precautions and instruct members on the place to flee throughout trial runs. However his district was unlikely to alter the foundations and the police had been unlikely to intervene within the Shinto spiritual ceremony, he stated.
The danjiri custom dates again three centuries and commenced as a spiritual ritual throughout harvest season. Residents of Kishiwada, the southern metropolis in Osaka prefecture the place the custom started, would carry a wood float lit by tons of of paper lanterns across the city earlier than communal prayers at a Shinto shrine.
Over time, danjiri unfold to different cities throughout Japan. It additionally grew to become extra violent. Scuffles usually broke out as floats jostled one another on slim streets. The frequent tussles led to danjiri turning into referred to as the “preventing competition.”
Within the Fifties, group leaders in Kishiwada started to ascertain new guidelines to deal with the violence, together with introducing a one-way system to keep away from collisions between floats. It has since developed right into a parade with nice shows of showmanship. Performers in conventional uniforms stability and dance on the roofs of the floats, which themselves are symbols of the vitality of every area people. Youngsters are recruited to participate whereas in elementary faculty, working towards the sharp turns with hand-pulled wagons.
Throughout the parade, younger and previous residents run forward of every float, pulling it with ropes. They execute sharp 90-degree turns, referred to as yarimawashi, at full pace, as performers driving on the float lean in a single route to forestall it from tipping over.
However security questions have been raised 12 months after 12 months. The fatalities earlier this month weren’t the primary.
In 2022 and 2023, 4 folks died and 32 had been injured in 4 incidences. One danjiri participant died in Maniwa, a metropolis in Okayama, resulting in a one-year hiatus of the competition earlier than it resumed in 2025. In 2023, police in Tondabayashi, a metropolis in Osaka, accused three danjiri competition representatives of negligence after one demise and three accidents, however prosecutors didn’t indict them.
Different festivals involving heavy floats have suffered fatalities. On Saturday, the deputy mayor of Saijo on Shikoku Island was killed whereas elevating on his shoulders a three-ton float known as a taikodai, which serves as a shifting stage for drummers.
Hisao Arimoto, an affiliate professor who research the danjiri competition at Konan Ladies’s College in Kobe, stated that there had been requires bans or modifications yearly, however few modifications had adopted. “It could be troublesome to make drastic modifications as a result of it’s an occasion that entails so many individuals,” he stated by phone.
Hideaki Karaki, a professor emeritus of the College of Tokyo, stated that it will be inconceivable to remove dangers altogether. “The very components that create hazard — its pace, its weight and the extraordinary vitality of the gang — are additionally the core of what makes the competition so compelling,” he wrote in Wedge On-line, a information and enterprise journal.
However he added that the accidents would proceed if organizers declare that that they had taken sufficient precautions with out conducting correct danger assessments. “To make sure that a 300-year-old custom can endure for one more 300 years, what’s required is the braveness to look the hazards squarely within the eye,” he wrote.
