One of the things I’ve always loved about Japan is the way it exemplifies contrast.  I’ve written about this many times – the way the ancient past and the high-tech future exist side-by-side, especially in Tokyo.  The fascination and simultaneous apprehension towards foreigners and foreign culture.  The obsessive politeness and sometimes-shocking rudeness that you see in public social interaction.  The list could go on and on.

One could hardly find better exemplars for this than Osaka and Kyoto, the two most famous cities in West Japan.   Japanese have a saying about Kansai’s three great cities, each a mere few miles from the other – Kyoto is a Japanese city, Osaka is an Asian city, and Kobe is a European city.  From what I’ve seen there’s a certain measure of truth to that even if it is an oversimplification.  I’ve rarely visited both Osaka and Kyoto on the same day but when I do, the contrast is always quite striking (as in, a slap to the face).

The main purpose of my travels yesterday was to visit Hanatouro, the bi-yearly lantern festival held in Kyoto, but on the way I stopped off in Osaka where another big modern festival was taking place.  Nipponbashi Street Festa, held in Den Den Town (“Osaka’s Akiba”) is one of the largest cosplay events in the world.  I’ve never involved myself much in the cosplay side of otaku fandom – even here I took few photos, because protocol is you ask before you snap (I get the reasons for that, but rarely feel motivated to do so, so I generally just look).

As usual one is struck by the dedication and talent level Japanese fans display, though I confess I was a bit unnerved by the large chunk of the costumes that were military in nature.  There were some amazing costumes on display, but for too many featured automatic weapons for my liking.  Indeed I recognized very few of the characters portrayed, and the majority of attention-grabbers were scantily-dressed women in some sort of idol persona. As compared to Nipponbashi, Comiket (which is almost as huge a cosplay event as doujin one) has a much higher proportion of anime and manga character cosplay on display.

On to Kyoto – where almost as soon as I got off the train I found myself in the middle of competing rallies – between a hate speech group (this is distressingly common in any area of Japan frequented by tourists, but this one was apparently a big deal) and “No Hate Kyoto” counter-protest (which happily seemed much larger).  Unfortunately xenophobia is a part of daily life in Japan, though one could hardly claim it’s otherwise in the U.S. or Europe these days.

As for Hanatouro, it’s one of my favorite of all Kyoto festivals – despite the fact that it’s modern in origin.  Though some deride it for this reason, it doesn’t really bother me – all matsuri were “modern” at some point in their history.  Kyoto is pretty much only wonderful on days with a “Y” in them, but for me it’s at its best in winter and at night – the quietest and most serene times to be in this massively popular tourist destination.  I lack both the ability and the photo equipment to do any night festival justice, but I dearly love this one.

I walked the entire route (it’s only about 5 KM) and stopped by Shoren-in for their illumination, having already done the Kodai-ji (the best of them) and Kiyomizudera light-ups.  Hanatouro is elegant in its simplicity – it’s mostly just lanterns lining alleys and streets, but they’re so ethereally beautiful it takes the breath away.  There are also some ikebana displays, a group of children walking the route chanting “Be careful of fire!” and – most atmospheric of all – the “Kitsune no Yomeiri” (fox’s wedding) procession.  Those last two are traditional and very ancient rituals, even if the festival itself is modern.  It’s said to be good luck to join the fox’s wedding procession, so I did – along with half of Higashiyama, it seemed.