Himure Hachimangu, Shiga

This is a centuries-old religious festival, which the lord Oda Nobunaga was known to be very fond of in the early 16th century. Admire the spectacular floats carried by men wearing theatrical makeup. Watch as participants dance excitedly amid showers of fiery sparks around a blazing {sagicho}. These are floats with a two-meter-high pine torch woven from new straw on top of which is propped a three-meter-long bamboo pole decorated with thousands of strips of red paper. A figure of the animal of the year is mounted in the center of the float. On the 17th, these sagicho are crashed together in a fighting ceremony. Ramming into each other, some of them break into pieces. See elaborately dressed young men dancing wildly around the flames as the floats are set ablaze at the end of the ceremony.