The Hirosaki summer festival "Hirosaki Neputa Festival" started on August 1st, and the "Sakura Miku" Mae lantern contest was held.

Sakura Miku, the official support character for the Hirosaki Sakura Festival, is a character with a cherry blossom derived from the popular female virtual idol "Hatsune Miku" in Japan and overseas. In collaboration with this year's Hirosaki Neputa Festival, we are implementing wrapping trains and stamp rallies around the city.

The front lantern contest is a screening of Neputa produced by the operating Neputa organization under the theme of Sakura Miku. 13 groups announced participation. The screening will be conducted on the first and second days of the festival, and the results will be announced on the night of the second day.

Six groups operated on one day. At "Sakuragaoka Neputa Lovers", we made a small Neputa and drew two types of Sakura Miku with different expressions, a mirror picture (front Neputa picture) and a send-off picture (reverse Neputa picture). At the "Mei Yukai", Neputa showed different tastes depending on the group, such as the production of Sakura Miku's group Neputa.

The "Aoyagi Neputa Lovers Association" scheduled to run on the 2nd will participate in Neputa using Neputa artist, Mr. Kunisen Kimura. In the Neputa hut, the work of pasting Neputa pictures that arrived in one day was done at a fast pace. The group has won the Grand Prix in the 2016 “Flying Witch” character Neputa contest for cartoons (Heisei 28), and there are expectations for the contest now.

You can check the operating days of each group on the Hirosaki Tourism and Convention Association website.