Fireworks: Why Japan Saves Them for Summer

Fireworks. Which season do you associate them with?

If you live in Western Europe, it would be New Year's Eve.

In the Netherlands, New Year's Eve used to mean streets full of fireworks. Sometimes a group of friends would even buy €1,000 worth of fireworks together and set them off throughout the evening.

But this is changing. From the coming New Year's Eve, consumer fireworks are banned throughout the Netherlands, apart from small F1 fireworks such as sparklers and fountains. Professional shows and certain local exceptions will still be possible.

In Japan, fireworks are a completely different story.

Summer means fireworks.

You can buy small fireworks almost everywhere, and children learn from an early age how to handle them safely. There are still accidents — the Japanese government specifically warns about children's injuries from hand-held fireworks every summer — so it is definitely not completely risk-free.

I don't know of reliable statistics that would allow a proper comparison of firework injuries between Japan and the Netherlands, so I won't claim that Japan has fewer accidents. But the way fireworks are used is certainly very different.

Summer means hanabi

In Japan, hanabi (花火), literally “fire flowers”, are one of the symbols of summer.

Almost every weekend during the summer, there are fireworks festivals somewhere in the country. Some places have several evenings of fireworks during the season. Tokyo Disneyland, for example, has a regular fireworks programme, although the schedule varies and there are days when the fireworks are cancelled.

And this year, I really wanted to go to one.

My mother once told me about watching fireworks from the beach in Atami: how close they felt, how loud they were, and how impressive it was to watch fireworks over the sea.

So when I saw that the fireworks festival in Ito, the Anjinsai (按針祭), was celebrating its 80th anniversary this year and would have 20,000 fireworks, I thought: this is not to be missed.

A strategic spot on the beach

We headed out early, buying bentō on the way.

We left the car at the station and took the train, because the roads around the fireworks venue would be closed and we didn't want to get stuck in the huge traffic afterwards.

We arrived shortly after 17:00, and there was still plenty of space on the beach. So we found a good strategic spot and settled in.

The sun wouldn't set until around 19:00, while the fireworks were scheduled to start at 20:00.

And that is important to know.

Summer nights are perfect for fireworks

In the Netherlands, summer evenings stay light for a very long time. Around the longest days of the year, you would have to wait until very late before it gets properly dark — far too late for most fireworks shows.

Japan also has long summer days, of course, but the seasonal difference in daylight is much smaller than in the Netherlands. And Japan doesn't use daylight saving time, so the clock doesn't suddenly move an hour forward in summer either. In Tokyo, for example, sunset is around 19:00 in summer, while in Rotterdam it can be close to 22:00.

So Japanese summer evenings give you something quite convenient: warm enough to sit outside, but dark enough to see the fireworks at a reasonable time.

Perfect. And yes, the fireworks were worth waiting for.

Fireworks over the sea

The sea makes a wonderful backdrop.

Instead of buildings and streetlights, you have the dark sky and the dark water. And when the fireworks are reflected in the sea, you get another layer of light.

The fireworks at Ito are launched from several locations along the coast, which makes the whole thing feel much bigger.

I’ll be there again next year.