Photo/Illutration A portable 'mikoshi' shrine is paraded through the streets of Tokyo on May 22. (Sayuri Ide)

The huge Sanja Matsuri festival featuring three portable “mikoshi” shrines returned on May 22 for the first time in three years to crowded streets in Tokyo’s Asakusa district and with some anti-virus restrictions applied.

The three massive mikoshi were moved from Asakusajinja shrine toward the streets on the final morning of the annual three-day event.

Crowds of spectators surrounded the parade in the pleasant weather of the day.

In 2020, when the novel coronavirus pandemic struck, the centuries-old festival was postponed to October, and only one mikoshi was carried, on a truck.

In 2021, the parade was canceled after a COVID-19 state of emergency was declared for Tokyo and other prefectures.

This year, the three mikoshi were used, but some anti-virus restrictions were in place for the participants.

The festival has a history of about 700 years and attracts around 1.8 million people annually. The number of bearers per mikoshi can total several hundred in normal years.

However, only about 100 people were allowed to carry the mikoshi this year to prevent crowding.

They were each required to have received three vaccine shots or provide a negative result for a virus test conducted on or after May 19.

At 7 a.m., the three portable shrines were carried out from the grounds of the shrine by about 100 bearers each.

An hour later, they were paraded through the streets in a row by fewer than 20 bearers each.

To reduce the number of bearers, the mikoshi were, in fact, placed on wheeled platforms.

Shrine parishioners put the poles that were connected to the mikoshi on their shoulders to create the image that they were actually carrying the shrines through the streets.

(This article was written by Katsumoto Horikawa and Hiraku Higa.)

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