Maebashi Hatsuichi Festival

Held every January 9, the Maebashi Hatsuichi Festival in Gunma Prefecture celebrates the end of the previous year and welcomes good luck for the upcoming one. This family-friendly festival features eye-catching displays and plenty of market stalls to keep everyone entertained.

Maebashi Hatsuichi Festival

Photo by: PIXTA/とんとん You won’t want to miss this.

The Hatsuichi Festival has been running for about 400 years and takes the ideas of daruma (Japanese dolls associated with good luck and prosperity) to a public forum. At the beginning of the new year, the people of Maebashi and visitors gather to destroy the large versions of last year’s daruma dolls. People can donate their dolls to a bonfire and collectively send them off to the heavens in a celebratory blaze of fire.

If you don’t have a daruma to give, don’t worry. You can still enjoy the spectacle and reap the benefits of good health that emerge from the smoke. The end of the festival is no less dramatic with performers, dancers and a portable shrine parading through the streets.

People, especially business owners, head to the festival to hope for a prosperous year.

What Is a Daruma?

Photo by: PIXTA/ muroro Gunma is the country’s largest producer of daruma dolls

Daruma dolls originate from the legends of the real-life Bodhidharma, a Buddhist monk who may have lived in the fifth or sixth century and spread the teachings of the Buddha throughout South and East Asia. According to one story, the legendary monk mutilated himself as punishment during a failed period of extensive meditation. Bodhidharma also lost several body parts as a result of the long-term meditation. The doll we know today reflects this gruesome history as only its head remains. A daruma is only a head and comes with blank eyes so that people can draw one pupil while making a wish. When the wish is fulfilled, you then draw the second eye.

Gunma is the country’s largest producer of daruma dolls. Located about 30 minutes from Maebashi City, Takasaki City makes the most dolls in the prefecture.

Festival Highlights

Good luck is the main theme of the festival, and there are plenty of opportunities to buy trinkets and charms. With more than 400 stalls organized for the festival, you can buy a new daruma for the year, maneki-neko (a beckoning cat charm that brings good luck) and lots of local food and drink. The most interesting part? There are no prices, so you’ll be bargaining at every stall you visit.