It's crowded, it's hot, it's tribal ... it's perfect: Awa Odori festival

I'm running over to the Kichijoji Uni-Qlo store to pick up a summer men's yukata and maybe some tabi socks with the big toe cut separately. But instead I opt for socks with all the toes sewn separately, that have a better design. Japanese friends never fail to point out how it's not the appropriate footwear at all for this festival, but I'm not a purist. And I'm a six foot long toe-headed foreigner, so I'm not expecting to fit in. 

Summer fairs

I'm on the way to Awa-Odori, Koenji's annual festival brought all the way from Tokushima (always the last weekend of August), on a balmy night where the endless summer heat brings out an almost primal feeling in people and the desire to have some kind of summer catharsis is tangible. 

Maybe that's why we have summertime fairs and parades, which would seem pointless any other time. People need to be let out onto the hot streets, having exhausted all the other possibilities in the first half of the summer. Now there's nothing left to do but get out onto the street and meld with the heat, and meld with crowds of people melting in the heat. 

This is tradition. As long as the summer bleeds people out of their hot apartments onto the summer streets, so will the tradition of parades continue. But it's just too hot during the day to care. Which makes Awa-Odori the perfect parade, starting after sundown. 

I'm close enough to ride my bike, dressed in a lightweight and somewhat restricting summer yukata I picked up for ¥3,500. I have to hike the robe up over my knees to allow freedom to pedal and the barely existent summer air, just enough to cool me down half a degree, shuttles me down Chuo Dori Street to where Tokyo Metro Shin-Koenji station lets out.

Beating the crowds

You could try to get off at Chuo Line's Koenji station and immediately be absorbed into an unbelievable throng, some chunk of the 1.2 million visitors, and find your way to a vantage point, or make it easier on yourself by taking my advice. Don't go to Koenji station.

The best idea is to get out at Shin Koenji station, where one route of Awa dancers begin their procession down the Nakamichi Promenade towards Koenji station. From there you can just latch onto the back of one of the dance troupes and follow them down, maybe pick up a drink and a yakitori stick at any yatai on your way down the street and wait for the next group of dancers to come down. In total 12,000 dancers participate in this festival so there's no chance of missing the parade.

These 12,000 dancers are divided into 26 ren groups. Although the half moon straw hats that cutely conceal the womens' faces are a familiar site from group to group, the variations in colors and styles of wardrobe, dance styles and drumbeat is what keeps it interesting. It's a 500-year-old show, so it's a good balance of timeless dance honed and hewn with an effortless looking jauntiness to be entertaining in any age. All this over a kind of simple tribal Yoshikono rhythm, beat out on wood bass Oo-Daiko drums, varied with percussive shime-daiko tom drums and thick bamboo stick percussion. 

This is the kind of parade that codifies disparate groups. It's not as proper and refined as one would think, nor is it some austere demonstration of archaic ways. This is the people of the south bringing their rhythm and soul to the uptight Kanto Tokyoites. This parade doesn't get called off when it rains, it just makes them dance harder. The thrill you can sense is in people who aren't from Tokyo reminding the Tokyo snobs how it's done, for one weekend.

It's not exactly a competition but it has that spirit, each ren group bringing the intensity up a notch as if trying to outdo the other.

And it's not like the usual fair, the electricity in the air is genuine and inspiring as only a festival of 1.2 million onlookers/celebrators could create. When it's done, you feel satisfied, like you've earned something that night. And the air stays electric for the rest of the night as visitors mix with locals and pour out onto the streets along the Chuo train line, drinking at local yatai outdoor cafés/bars and yakitori stands.