Massive lanterns featuring mythical gods and fabled creatures paraded through Aomori city and Goshogawara city, north of Japan, on Saturday and Sunday in one of the country’s most popular summer festivals.
The Nebuta festival, originating from the Edo period, draws almost 3 million visitors every year and is also known for its booming drum beats and boisterous dancers.
Though the style of floating lanterns vary across different regions within the prefecture, the iconic “Tachineputa” features tall lanterns as high as 23 meters, while the classic Nebuta lantern is usually flat-shaped and can measure as wide as nine meters.
Each lantern is newly-crafted and painted by hand each year, and requires about 20 to as many as 200 people to pull through the streets depending on its size.
