Photo/Illutration Fireworks light up the sky in Daisen, Akita Prefecture, in a seasonal fireworks event on April 29. (Tsutomu Yamatani)

The town of Omagari, now a part of Daisen city in Akita Prefecture, is famous for its fireworks.

Miharu Goto, 25, who was hired by a garment factory upon graduation from high school, quit in the summer of 2019 to work at Hibikiya Omagari Fireworks, a long-established firm dating to the Meiji Era (1868-1912).

Just as she was getting used to her new job, however, the novel coronavirus pandemic struck.

“Fireworks displays were being canceled left and right, and I was worried about my future,” Goto recalled. But becoming a pyrotechnician had been her dream since childhood, and she never lost hope.

“This year’s fireworks displays mean the world to us pros,” said Kentaro Saito, 42, the president of Hibikiya Omagari Fireworks.

The company’s sales in 2020 fell 70 percent from the preceding year. Business continued to languish in 2021 but rebounded this year.

The Omagari Fireworks Festival, which also serves as an annual competition for pyrotechnicians from around the nation, will be held shortly for the first time in three years.

“People look up at the sky during a fireworks show,” Saito said. “I really want this year’s event to inspire and encourage everyone.”

As gunpowder is used to make fireworks, the task requires extreme caution and intense concentration, with oversized “odama” fireworks sometimes taking several months to complete.

All this hard work is amply rewarded, however, by the few seconds of each pyrotechnical display that utterly delights and awes so many viewers.

The number of fireworks shows in 2020 was a mere 10 percent of the pre-pandemic level, and about 20 percent in 2021, according to the Japan Pyrotechnics Association. Even this year, it is still between 30 and 40 percent.

We missed so many things in our daily lives during the pandemic.

For schoolchildren, they included their school entrance ceremonies, sports days and school trips.

For us adults, we were forced to do without getting together with friends over meals and drinks, and we could not freely visit someone in the hospital or even attend a family funeral.

In the olden days, fireworks helped people wish away bad luck.

The pandemic’s seventh wave is still far from being brought under control, but I would like to pray for its end during this year’s fireworks displays--the first in three years.

A haiku by Michiko Shimizu goes to the effect, “Pyrotechnician’s darkness/ newborn from the end.”

As people make wishes amid the light and dark, the Omagari Fireworks Festival will mark its 94th staging on Aug. 27.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 24

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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