logo
Japan's northeastern region showcases summer festivals at Osaka Expo

Japan's northeastern region showcases summer festivals at Osaka Expo

NHK15-06-2025
People from northeastern Japan have jointly showcased their region's traditional summer festivals at the World Expo in Osaka.
The Tohoku Kizuna Festival was established to help the region recover from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. The annual event brings together six of Tohoku's major summer festivals and has been hosted in turn by its six prefectures.
People from Tohoku held a special version of this event at the Expo arena over the weekend to express their gratitude for the domestic and international support they received for their rebuilding efforts. Their performance was also aimed at showing the world how each prefecture has recovered.
On Sunday, 550 people representing the six festivals paraded through the arena.
Those from Akita Prefecture hoisted 12-meter-long bamboo poles, each weighing 50 kilograms and adorned with paper lanterns. They balanced them on their shoulders and foreheads, to loud applause from spectators.
Dancers from Yamagata Prefecture performed while waving straw hats decorated with red flowers.
Participants from Fukushima Prefecture marched through the venue carrying a giant, 12-meter-long straw sandal.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Japan Emperor, Empress Leave for Mongolia

timea day ago

Japan Emperor, Empress Leave for Mongolia

News from Japan Society Jul 6, 2025 13:19 (JST) Tokyo, July 6 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako left Tokyo's Haneda Airport on a government plane Sunday for a weeklong official visit to Mongolia as state guests. They will be the first reigning Emperor and Empress to visit Mongolia. The Emperor visited the country in 2007 when he was Crown Prince. Ahead of their departure, the Emperor and Empress greeted Crown Prince Akishino, Crown Princess Kiko and others who were at the airport to see the Imperial couple off. On Tuesday, the Emperor and Empress will attend a series of official events--a welcome ceremony, a meeting with Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh and his wife, and a banquet hosted by the Mongolian first couple. On the same day, they will offer flowers at the cenotaph for some 1,700 Japanese who were detained by the former Soviet Union after World War II and died in Mongolia. On Friday, the Imperial couple will attend the opening ceremony of Naadam, Mongolia's biggest festival, as an official event. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Jiji Press

North America's largest anime convention underway in Los Angeles
North America's largest anime convention underway in Los Angeles

NHK

time2 days ago

  • NHK

North America's largest anime convention underway in Los Angeles

Fans of Japanese animation are flocking to Los Angeles to attend North America's largest anime convention. The annual Anime Expo has been underway since Thursday. The four-day event has served as a major showcase for Japanese pop culture in the United States for more than 30 years. More than 300 exhibitors are introducing new content and items, including the latest Japanese animation works and video games. The convention also features events, such as panel discussions hosted by Yoshida Naoki, who produced the latest video game title in the popular Final Fantasy series. Cosplayers dressed up as anime characters took photos of each other, while other visitors bought exclusive items. A man said he enjoyed seeing so many people openly showing that they love anime. The Japanese government is promoting the country's content industry, such as movies and animation, with the aim of expanding overseas sales about fourfold to 20 trillion yen, or about 138 billion dollars. The Japan External Trade Organization says a significantly growing number of Japanese companies are visiting the Anime Expo for business. It adds that the visitors also include firms that are not related to the content business.

The future is bright inside the visionary mind of architect Sou Fujimoto
The future is bright inside the visionary mind of architect Sou Fujimoto

Japan Times

time3 days ago

  • Japan Times

The future is bright inside the visionary mind of architect Sou Fujimoto

In Sou Fujimoto's architecture, the future is bright and airy — much like his structures. It's a wholly utopian vision. From his almost entirely glass House NA in Tokyo to his transparent roof and white steel lattice design for the Serpentine Gallery's pavilion in London, and, most recently, his wooden Grand Ring for Expo 2025, the architect has long been preoccupied with openness and freedom. 'Each and every person is a corner that hides away, but also leaves one side for openness,' he says. Fujimoto, 53, grew up in the rural town of Higashikagura, Hokkaido, where he often played in the woods, feeling 'surrounded but protected, not restricted.' After moving to Tokyo for university, he recalls being struck by the similarities between natural and built environments. Unlike the artificial grids of Asahikawa and Sapporo, Tokyo's winding roads reminded him of the forest paths of his childhood. The shōtengai (shopping streets), rows of wooden houses and the haphazardly placed potted plants in front of them, utility poles and train tracks — what he calls 'a streetscape formed of tasteful clutter' — created a dense, layered environment in which 'you can walk anywhere freely, like in a forest.' The image of a growing forest serves as both muse and leitmotif in Fujimoto's largest exhibition to date, 'The Architecture of Sou Fujimoto: Primordial Future Forest,' on view at Mori Art Museum in Minato Ward through Nov. 9. Fujimoto and the team at Mori Art Museum wanted to create an exhibition that's more than simply displaying drawings and models. | ZORIA PETKOSKA The exhibition presents a thicket of projects spanning three decades, divided into eight sections — five of which include the word 'forest.' The first, titled 'Forest of Thoughts,' features more than 1,000 architectural models, some handmade by Fujimoto himself. The works are arranged not only on stands but emerge from the walls and sway from the ceiling using transparent strands. 'We've done many architecture exhibitions at Mori Art Museum,' says museum director Mami Kataoka, 'but we wanted to do something different than just displaying models and drawings.' 'I conceptualized this exhibition from scratch,' Fujimoto adds. 'In fact, I was working on the layout until yesterday. It was very difficult, but I am grateful for the challenge.' Winding through the 'Forest of Thoughts' section, the experience evokes the feeling of stepping inside the architect's mind. The inspiration for Fujimoto's building designs is made tangible through items such as a loofah, potato chips, a stack of matchboxes and a scrunched metal sieve — juxtaposed with the models of buildings that have since materialized, including the Shiroiya Hotel in Gunma Prefecture and the House of Music Hungary in Budapest. Fujimoto has also drawn a map of circles in three colors for this room, classifying his work into three categories: 'open boundaries,' 'amorphous' and 'many many many,' which he sees as the core tenets of his architectural philosophy. The diagram, with the categories overlapping, resembles a forest bursting with foliage. Fujimoto designed the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London in 2013. He was the youngest architect at the time to design the annual temporary structure. | Iwan Baan In the next section, 'Forest of Tracks — Chronology,' Fujimoto and architectural historian Shunsuke Kurakata — a collaborator on the exhibition — present a timeline tracing Fujimoto's career. It is interwoven with key projects by other prominent Japanese architects, as well as milestones in architectural history and global society. 'I see this and I realize I have been working hard, haven't I?' Fujimoto says, reflecting on the display. The exhibition includes contributions from other collaborators, too. In 'Book Lounge of Awai (In-Between),' curated by book specialist Haba Yoshitaka, 40 titles that resonate with Fujimoto's work are placed in small wooden chairs that were inspired by church furniture. Visitors are invited to sit down and read if the mood strikes them. "This lounge is a space that exists between reading and not reading,' Yoshitaka writes in a statement. 'It is a space for gently rethinking the contours of the act of reading.' Placed in the only room in the exhibition with a view of Tokyo's sprawling skyline, this section is also an invitation to gaze out the window and read the very cityscape that Fujimoto likens to a forest. Architecture for humans Fujimoto's work is created with people in mind. He recalls designing his father's psychiatric clinic and discussing the needs of the patients who would use the space. His father believed that conventional hospital architecture was too uniform, failing to account for the diverse needs of individual patients. Imagining human activity is standard in architecture, and throughout the exhibition there is an abundance of tiny human figurines in all models (and even on the potato chips and loofah) to give a sense of scale. One section, 'Animated Forest,' is entirely dedicated to larger scale models that serve as canvases for video projections of crowds moving across. It shares the space with 'Open Circle,' which consists of drawings and a 1:5 scale model of the Grand Ring you can walk through, becoming the human figure, albeit out of scale. 'You'll probably feel like a giant,' says curator Kenichi Kondo. The 1:5 scale model of the Grand Ring at the Expo is constructed so visitors can walk through it. | ZORIA PETKOSKA In addition to more than a 1,000 architectural models, the exhibition contains two large-scale models, one of the Grand Ring for the Osaka Expo 2025 and one for a memorial and concert hall in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, that's currently under construction and slated to be completed in 2031. | ZORIA PETKOSKA 'The Grand Ring is big, but the pillars are open and you are free to move underneath,' Fujimoto says. The project, which has earned a Guinness World Record as the largest wooden architectural structure on Earth — offers shelter inside and a view from the top, where flowers have been planted. Freedom is a recurring element in Fujimoto's work. The Grand Ring model shows figures sitting on the ground, running around and pausing to enjoy the space. He's not trying to micromanage chaos, believing instead in 'loose order amid the confusion,' a lesson he traces back to his childhood experiences playing in the woods. In Fujimoto's philosophy, we should be able to adjust our space depending on our needs at different times. In L'Arbre Blanc (The White Tree) mixed-use residential tower, one of his biggest projects in France, he positioned balconies asymmetrically so residents could see one another, and incorporated public spaces into the building's design. For him, architecture must provide privacy and shelter, but it must also leave room for connection. 'There is something to be said about shared experiences — something essential to human society,' Fujimoto says in a video that's part of the exhibition. 'If architecture can create spaces like that, then it's doing its job.' Future cities Although 'Primordial Future Forest' surveys the architect's career to date, it doesn't dwell too much on the past. On the contrary, it looks forward, justifying the 'future forest' in its title. 'Forest of Thoughts' includes ongoing projects such as Tokyo's Torch Tower, which, upon completion in 2028, is set to become Japan's tallest skyscraper. The penultimate section, 'A Forest / Many Forests,' is dedicated to another major project currently under construction: the International Center Station Northern Area Complex in Sendai. This multipurpose complex will serve as both a memorial to the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 and a concert hall. The model, constructed in 1:15 scale, is lifted off the ground so it can be viewed from all sides. The seating areas are broken apart and hanging in the air, but without barriers and in the same hall, listening to the same music, which embodies Fujimoto's philosophy of coming together for a moment of connection. "Diverse and unified is the thinking of this project, too," Fujimoto says. The exhibition visualizes inspiration for design by juxtaposing the architectural models with mundane objects such as a sieve, a loofa and a stack of matchboxes or potato chips. | ZORIA PETKOSKA Architectural models are displayed in both expected and unexpected ways, with some hanging from the ceiling or stuck to the walls. | ZORIA PETKOSKA While these buildings are set for completion in the near future — the Sendai building is set to be completed in 2031 — the exhibition ventures further into speculative territory. Titled 'Forest of Future, Forest of Primordial — Resonant City 2025,' it presents a vision of a floating city composed of latticed spheres. Developed in collaboration with Hiroaki Miyata, data scientist and university professor, the model imagines a world of personal drones that would eliminate the need for elevators and stairs. To produce the intricate 3D-printed model, Kondo says the team needed to purchase 20 3D printers. "The models in the first room were in the air, too,' adds Miyata with a laugh. 'I think Fujimoto—san wants to float and fly! This is not an answer, but a question for the future." Fujimoto later adds that this design is 'a trigger to keep imagining.' The future, however, is never disconnected from the past. When asked what he thinks about the neglect and loss of Metabolist architecture in Japan, Fujimoto maintains that its ideas remain vital to architects' thinking. '(Ideas) of organic design and sustainability come from there,' he says before gesturing to his Resonant City 2025 model. 'In fact, I think this is something like updated Metabolism." It's a continuation of his signature style — airy structures with organic shapes that don't fight surrounding nature, but don't completely blend in, either. There's room for bold design, innovation and experimentation. In Fujimoto's utopian architecture, we can have it all: the forest and the metropolis, the public and the private. 'With the rise of computers and the internet, I started to wonder what would happen to physicality,' he says. 'The conclusion I reached was that it would likely grow in importance.' 'The Architecture of Sou Fujimoto: Primordial Future Forest,' is on view at Mori Art Museum through Nov. 9. For more information, visit

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store