From 20th/May to 22nd/May, one of the most famous festivals in Tokyo will be hold at Asakusa Shrine.
The name of the festival is Sanja Matsuri.
It's parade of mikoshis, a kind of mobile shrine is famous for verious reasons.
First, 3 of the mikoshis are very heavy and expensive. Each of them weighs about 1 ton! And making one of them costs about 390k dollars!
And another reason is its parade on the last day is very wild.
Many carriers of mikoshi always try to ride on the mikoshi.
This act is prohibited by the shrine as it is too dangerous, but none the less, or because of it, many bold men try to ride on them, like this.
As you noticed, the courageous riders are fully decorated with Japanese traditional tatto. Yes, most of these men are Yakuza.
Perhaps, boldness is heavily important in Yakuza society, they always try this dangerous act.
But, at least Sanja Matsuri of this year will be safer than past years.
As the sign of mourning the loss of Japan Quake, Asakusa Shrine desided to stop parading mikoshis. Many shinto rituals are hold as usual but no mikoshis.
And this year, yakuza will obey the shrine's wish.
This is not so widely known fact but one of the quickest helpers who brought tons of relief supplies to victims of tsunami are not police nor NGO but yakuza.
Because yakuza know too much how terrible the damage done by quake and tsunami as eyewitnesses, they will exercise self-restraint about this matter too.
Ironically, taking part in Sanja Matsuri without seeing mikoshi parade is rarest experience, so many visitors are expected.
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