Kumagaya, Saitama Pref. – It’s mind-numbingly hot in downtown Kumagaya. My yukata (light summer kimono) clings to my skin with sweat. I’m ringed by 12 towering floats mounted by musicians, some wailing on drums and handheld gongs, others blowing frantically into flutes, each float trying to overpower the next.

I half-expected the heat, but it’s the sound of this moment — not a sudden crescendo but a sustained aural onslaught — that beats any stray thought from between my ears.

And yet, this was the high point of my visit to last year’s Uchiwa Festival, a traditional, citywide matsuri (festival) that takes place every year from July 20 to 22 in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture. Ostensibly held to pray for good health and prosperity, the celebration is one of several throughout Japan modeled after Kyoto’s famous Gion Festival, but the Uchiwa Festival is the largest of its kind in the Kanto region, drawing an estimated 750,000 spectators each year.

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