Lets face it, to many outsiders, Japan is a crazy country that does everything a little different, has futuristic technology, interesting food, adult cartoons and an abundance of weird fetishes. Whilst these are often exaggerated massively or are incredibly niche. Certain events or sights here can sometimes fit the stereotypes perfectly. Sex sells, we all know that so the 'fertility festival' is now often lovingly referred to as 'The Penis Festival'.
豊年祭り Honen Matsuri is a Japanese fertility festival that is held on March 15th every year in Nagoya prefecture at the Tagata Shrine in Komaki. Honen means 'Proposerous year' whereas 'Matsuri' means festival in Japanese. The aim is to celebrate the blessings of bountiful harvest and prosperity and fertility. It sure as hell beats the can drives we used to have at school. Penis over canned corn any day!
Tagata Shrine
Early morning preparations
The festival starts with celebration and preparation at 10:00 a.m. at Tagata Jinja, where all sorts of foods and souvenirs (mostly phallus-shaped or related) are sold. You can see various carts full of charms and sake barrels being pulled by high spirited (literally) festival volunteers. They even had a big pushing war, blue vs red, just outside the gates which was fun to watch.
Inside the temple grounds you can find the usual festival variety of food stalls ranging from castella, to takoyaki, grilled meats and fish and so on. Accompanied by toy stalls and games etc for the kids. However since I was still feeling fragile from a night of St. Patricks day celebrations the night before I refrained from the treats...for now.
We trekked to the outer shrine, which is up a steep hill beyond the train tracks. At the top is a small temple, Shinmai sha, and beside it was the star of the show, a 280 kg (620 pound), 2.5 meter (96 inch)-long wooden phallus. If its your dream to take a selfie with a gargantuan dick like the girls below, here is your best chance. This phallus is later used for the 'climax' of the ceremony, as it is later carried down the hill to Tagata Shrine, but at that point it is swarmed by crowds. Here it was nice and quiet and people took turns to have their photo taken. There was a wall of photographers snapping away, especially so whenever a foreigner walked up!
Before the parade you can take photos at the smaller shrine with the main penis
I also found this awesome flag nearby, by far my happiest photo of the day!
My favourite photo of the day, to scale.
AvidyaJP having a stroke with Taurinensis
Speaking of foreigners, outside of places like Roppongi in Tokyo or Amemura in Osaka, this was by far the largest concentration of non Japanese that I have encountered in Japan. Far outweighing the national percentage, obviously attracted by the unusual chance to celebrate the D. While most were pleasant and respectful there is sadly a recognizable percentage that give a bad reputation for everyone who are loud, drunk, rowdy or just saying really ignorant comments. Plenty of exceptions though, so if you go, please respect the local customs, especially around the temple areas.
The queue to buy these banana and marshmallow dicks was, ahem, massive.
Past noon I was feeling a little better so with another blog friend Taurinensis of Identity Gaming and his wife we queued up to get some バナチン Banachin, Bana as in bana and chin as in penis. In case you are wondering, the marshmallows act as balls. I wish I had taken a photo of the line for this because it was huge! The popularity of this stall far outweighed the neighboring food stalls that I almost felt sorry for them. For 400 yen you can obtain your very own banana penis which comes in 4 different flavours. We opted for the black chocolate ones as they looked the most authentic and 'dickesque'!
4 flavours available, including snowbitten blue dicks.
Wildly popular バナチン banana dick!
It was pretty amusing to be walking around and seeing men, women, boys and girls alike nibbling, sucking and eating on various penis shaped bananas, candies and desserts. We couldn't resist taking a few photos ourselves although it is pretty embarrassing to do whilst a crowd of onlookers is staring at you!
Taurinensis and AvidyaJp enjoying the D
Taurinensis and AvidyaJP REALLY enjoying the D
Even I couldn't resist a sexy selfie
At 2 p.m. the parade to the Tagata Shrine started, the giant wooden penis is carried by volunteers followed by a chanting tengu and lead by chanting priests. Beautiful maidens also carry 60cm long wooden phalluses and were proving to be incredibly popular, sadly I missed my chance to take some photos for myself! Musicians were also playing tradition gaguku music. Festival volunteers also hand out various snacks and free sake to the crowd. As the phallus reaches the shrine, things get a bit crazy as the penis is span and paraded around wildly, much to the crowds pleasure! See the video below to watch the penis spinning in action!
After the penis is set down everyone gathers in the square outside Tagata Jinja and waits for the mochi nage, where rice cakes are thrown down from raised platforms by shrine officials, if you catch one it is meant to give you good luck. Sadly this is where some of the rowdy foreigners raised their heads. Often there is only enough for around 1 person out of 4 to collect a rice cake, whilst most Japanese would stand still and try to catch the cakes, some foreigners would sadly push and shove each other to get one. Later you could see some foreigners clutching 4-7 cakes for themselves and shoving them into bags, so again, if you go to the dick festival, don't be a dick yourself, there are enough on show already! The festival concludes at about 4:30 p.m.
Overall it was a nice experience, although to be honest I felt that it was a little overhyped considering how far away it is from Central Nagoya. I was expecting phalluses to be everywhere with an abundance of stalls selling related goods. In reality however there are only two small sites that display the festival items and only a couple of stalls actually selling penis shaped goods. So it was a little underwhelming initially.
But you can deny that seeing a unique festival like this is really cool, especially when you see the impressive wood carvings up close and is a great excuse to enjoy the festival spirit. If you have a chance I highly recommend it, you don't get an opportunity like this often!
The 'climax' of the Matsuri sees the penis being carried and spun.
A few days ago I saw one of the new anime commercials for miso soup airing on TV and was inspired to write this post. However unlike usual anime tie-ins, such as DBZ advertising gum, or Attack on Titan promoting pizza, this was a promotion done using an original short anime story.
Anime, like any other form of film media is an effective way to create a narrative with impact within a short time. The quality of animation used for these commercials is high, very fine details can be seen on the products, scenery and storyline. In the case of the final commercial at the bottom of the page, it was created by Makoto Shinkai, who directed the phenomenal 5cm and Garden of words movies, where the attention to detail was mind blowing. If you haven't seen either of those films, I highly recommend you check them out!
Back to Miso, the brand Marukome has released a set of anime shorts to promote their miso soup, focusing on a strong 'family ties' theme, they are really effective at making you feel warm and fuzzy, just like miso soup does!
Check them out below! Even if you can't understand Japanese you will be able to get the 'gist' of the story easily enough due to the good direction. I'll post a brief overview too!
料亭の味 カップみそ汁 夜食篇 Cup Miso: Late Night Supper.
This is the latest, advertising cup miso. It shows the story of a high school girl and father who lament that they struggle to communicate together effectively.
After studying late at night she comes downstairs to find 2 rice balls and miso soup waiting for her, upon thanking her mum in the morning she realizes that it was actually her father who prepared it for her. She goes downstairs the following night and sees her father making more rice balls, "Do you want to eat together?" for late night supper. She drinks the miso and states "Dads miso soup is warm...". He asks her which flavour rice ball she wants and they play rock, paper, scissors to decide who gets it.
Its a cute way to show they can communicate again over a hot cup of miso.
This commercial advertises the multipack miso sachets. It focus on a young salaryman who has left home for the first time to start his career.
He receives occasional care packages from home containing all sorts of goodies from home, including the multipack. When drinking the miso soup he imagines his mother sitting opposite him, giving him advice and motivating him to do his best. He encounters struggles at work, late nights, illness and overtime but through these troubles he always has his mother supporting him with these care packages. Things begin looking up and he receives a bonus, returning the favour by sending his mother a new sweater.
Despite distance the taste of home comforts can help inspire us and bring people together.
料亭の味 即席生みそ汁 単身赴任篇 Instant Miso Soup: Job Transfer away from home
This is my personal favourite out of the three. This heart warming story, follows a young father of two sweet girls who has been transferred away from home, a somewhat common thing in Japan for businessmen, albeit for a few years this can understandably put strain on both sides of the family.
However, one day his two daughters decide to pay him a visit. The daughters are keen to make it feel like home and practice with their mother to prepare one of his favourite meals, packing all of the ingredients with them. The father tries to help but they tell him to sit and wait, he father states "they really grew up..." as he watches. The girls, a little upset that it hadn't turned out as appealing as they hoped are instantly cheered up when their proud father takes a bite and claims "tastes just like home", which of course includes the miso soup!
Apparently this advertisement was proposed by one of the company's own employees who was transferred from Tokyo to Nagano. All of these miso commercials feel very relatable and close to home.
Ofcourse not only food companies use original anime shorts for advertising, some of the big brands have also created some fantastic stories to help push their services, including none other than Disney! I remember watching this last year as their promoted their Tokyo Disney Resort and being blown away by the quality. Despite only being 30 seconds long they managed to squeeze in a romantic story spanning a few generations. This one needs little introduction so sit back and enjoy the ad for "Where dreams come true."
The last and possibly most detailed offering, comes from the renowned director Makoto Shinkai. This anime was a promotional project for the cram school Z-Kai. Due to the difficulty of many University and High School entrance exams here, many students now go to cram schools in a desperate bid to make it into their first choice university. It seems to be a very bitter and stressful struggle involving many late nights, while also juggling day to day responsibilities and part time jobs.
Cross roads features a level of detail as expected of his previous work, the backgrounds and objects are absolutely gorgeous and bring life to their story and help us get absorbed into their world. Cross roads was released in 2 minute, 30 second and 15 second versions.
I especially like the moment where they open their exam papers in unison and the phrase いこう。どこまでも "Lets go/Go further. Anywhere is impossible". Its an inspiring message, regardless of what stage of life you are at.
Many outsiders to anime tend to look down on it, seeing it as nothing more as kids tales of beefy muscles, girls with huge eyes, panty shots, robots and power blasts. But this is one of many examples of how it can also be used to tell a heart warming, and very real story.
