The Kanto Festival is a 270 year history festival held in Akita Prefecture every summer. It is one of the most famous summer festivals in the Tohoku Region. This year, it is held from Saturday, August 3rd to Tuesday, August 6th.
The festival contains a wish for a bountiful harvest. The whole Kanto represents five grains which are rice, wheat, foxtail millet, proso millet, and barnyard millet. The lanterns represent a traditional rice container.
Kanto is a bamboo pole hanging lanterns which is 50 kg and 12 meters in length for the largest one called “Owaka”. The performers put it on their hand, forehead, shoulders and lower-back and control a balance is a traditional performance. The performers do training for many years to put on their body parts so they have an expert technique.
At night, about 280 Kanto with 10,000 lanterns light up the street and are so spectacular.
If you are interested in trying Kanto, there is an event you can try with miniature Kanto in the daytime. When you actually try it not only seen, you can feel the difficulty and realize how amazing they are.