Shirone Giant Fighting Kite Festival
Posted 3 Jun 2010 - 20:20 by Mark Gardner
Shirone is a town situated on the outskirts of Niigata City about 40km from Nagaoka. If you leave Nagaoka on Route 17, which becomes Route 8, and head in the direction of Niigata you will pass through Shirone.
The kite fighting festival is said to date back to 1740 and takes place on the banks of the Nakanokuchi River on which Shirone is situated.
There are 2 kinds of kites that are used, at least at today's fight, the festival actually lasts 4 days, starting on the first Thursday of June and running until the first Sunday. The first picture below shows the largest, these measure 7m x 5m and apparently weigh 30kg.
The ones below are smaller, but still big as you can see. These are known as Rokkakus and are a style originally invented in the nearby City of Sanjo which also has a kite fighting festival later in the month.
The objective of the fight is to tangle your kite with one flown from the opposite bank bringing then both crashing into the river. Yes, it's willful destruction of hundreds of kites which must have taken 100's of man hours to make.
Not all come down in the river, I can't imagine such an event getting past health and safety in the UK!
Once in the water the kite's paper disintegrates pretty quickly leaving a tangled web of bamboo and rope. The teams either side of the river then race to a central point where a tug of war ensues to establish the winner, if one teams rope breaks then it seemed the other was the winner.
Some other pictures, a couple of rokkakus positively tangled.
A team running to get their kite up in the air.
A rare piece of orderly flying.
I've written many time how I'd like to get some pictures of Yamakoshi from the air, one of the way's I've considered being attaching a camera to a kite - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/276. I've seen some great pictures recently taken with this little camera which as well as being light is shockproof and waterproof should it decide to take a dip in a mud pond. 
It also shoots HD video and is wearable, I can imagine some great harvest action video coming from it.
The kite fighting festival was unusual and interesting and it's certainly refuelled my idea of flying a kite over Yamakoshi. I have some video of the action which hopefully will convey the energy of the event better than stills can.
