This is a photo roundup of the Yamaga Toro Matsuri, an Obon festival held in August every year by the city of Yamaga in Kumamoto Prefecture. This festival is a crowded one indeed, but worth a visit, as it features several traditional dances, among which is the 1000 Person Lantern Dance, or Sennin Toro Odori (千人灯籠踊り). As you can tell from the images below, 1000 female participants perform a traditional dance in traditional garb, all with a lantern placed delicately upon their crowns. At the close of the festival, at a shrine a bit uphill from the elementary grounds the dance was performed at, many groups gift scale models of traditional buildings or scenes to the shrine, which are then blessed by a Shinto priest and received by the shrine. To my extreme surprise, as I went to grab an omikuji, or fortune, at the reception area alongside the shrine, I was told I won a prize! Which was a silver paper lantern just like those the dancers wore! So the festival ended on a nice note for me, with just the right amount of luck – daikichi, or big luck! :)