Japan has a number of unusual festivals, and the Ochochin Matsuri – the Giant Lantern Festival – that takes place in the Mikawa Isshiki region of Aichi Prefecture certainly numbers among them. This spectacular event features six pairs of huge paper lanterns – the biggest are over 10 meters high!

This annual festival takes place the last Saturday and Sunday of August at Suwa Jinja, a Shinto shrine located in the coastal Aichi Prefecture city of Nishio. The festival at the 500-year-old shrine has a history of some 400 years, and the lanterns themselves have been designated an Important Tangible Folk Culture Property by the prefecture. This year the festival took place on August 24 and 25, and the next one will be on August 29 and 30, 2020.

Getting to the venue is easy enough – Nishio and Hekinan, the Meitetsu train stations closest to the shrine, are each about an hour by rail from Nagoya, and there are direct bus runs to the shrine area from each station. From the bus stop it's a short walk to the shrine – just follow the crowd and look for the giant lanterns!

The Isshiki area is now part of the city of Nishio, but it used to be a small village in its own right. Legend holds that the lantern festival got its start when the residents of the village would light enormous bonfires in spring and autumn to ward off demons coming from the sea that were intent on destroying the village's fields and livestock. As the village grew, though, such giant bonfires became a hazard, and eventually, to replace the bonfires, the people from six districts surrounding Suwa Shrine set themselves to competing to create the biggest and most magnificent lanterns.

And the lanterns certainly are striking! Each bears the name of the team that fashioned it, and they are also decorated with gaudily colorful pictures depicting a wide variety of scenes from myth, legend, and actual history.

On Saturday, the festivities generally start early – at around 8:00 am, when the lanterns are brought in and hung from the tall stands set up on the grounds of the shrine.

The festival draws visitors from all throughout the region, and during the two-day event, the streets surrounding the shrine are filled with stalls offering food, drink, games, and more.

Nishio also happens to be a locale that produces green tea that's arguably of the finest quality in Japan. Luckily enough, there was a stall selling some chilled Nishio-grown matcha, so I got myself some. It was tasty and very refreshing on a hot August afternoon!

Also taking place during the festival are performances of ancient traditional music and dance called kagura.

The festival's second day also features events that include a traditional archery contest and a poetry reading.

One of the giant lanterns was set up with a ladder underneath it to let visitors climb up and look inside.

I got in line and took my turn, and got a good look at the cavernous interior. It's big!

At sundown, starting around 7:00 pm, the six neighborhood teams start getting ready to light up their lanterns. This is done using candles that, not surprisingly, are large and heavy, measuring 120 cm in length and weighing up to 80 kilograms.

The city's volunteer fire brigade oversees the lighting and crowd control to ensure safety.

One by one, the lantern teams run the heavy candles from the shrine's main hall out to the lantern to be illuminated.

They then place the candle in a special metal basket, light it, and carefully hoist it into the interior of the lantern

By eight o'clock or so, all twelve lanterns are lighted, much to the delight of the festival-goers gathered for the spectacle. It's truly an amazing sight!