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As some of you may know, 3^rd March was Dolls’ festival day in Japan!  It is a day for girls, and parents wish for girls’ healthy growth. Traditionally, households with girls have hina dolls display at their home during this period.  We even say that your daughter won’t be able to marry if you stop displaying dolls for the festival before she gets marry (yes, it’s serious business!).

Today, I would like to share an article about Dolls display for Dolls’ festival.

Traditionally, hina decoration has male and female doll in the middle which represents emperor and empress.  Some family has an extensive version, and some has small version depending on the size of house or area to decorate, but regardless of type, it always come with those two main dolls.

Here is the common extensive hina dolls decoration.

“hiromama” some rights reserved. flickr

Using general hina dolls, Gujo-city has unique display of dolls.

“BONGURI” some rights reserved. flickr

During Dolls’ festival, Gujo Hachiman Museum and castle town decorates hina dolls to represent daily life, which is unique to this area, as general display usually in a perfect order.  But I like the fact that it looks more lively and close to real life^^  It could also reflect trend of the year, so you can enjoy different arrangement every year!

And this is the truly extensive hina decoration of Katsuura-cities, called “Katsuura big hina festival”!

“HAMACHI!” some rights reserved. flickr

Chiba prefecture and Tokushima prefecture have a town shared the same name, Katsuura.  In Katsuura of Chiba, approx.. 25K hina dolls decorate town from the late February to 3^rd March.  One of the famous one is displayed at Tomisaki Shrine with 1200 dolls on 60 stony steps.  On the other hand, popular one in Tokushima-side is pyramid shaped 100 steps hina decoration using approx. 30K dolls!   It seems it started when Katsuura in Tokushima collected disused hina from all over Japan.

Well, I believe all dolls retain happy memory of people, but if dolls left behind can be utilised like this to bring people smiles, I guess it was a good approach 😮   If you have a chance to come to Japan around this season, I hope you will be able to enjoy dolls decoration somewhere.  There are many more places, which displays unique dolls in Japan!

What do you think about today’s article?

I will be looking forward to hearing from you:)

Source: web R25

This is JAPAN Style!