Hachioji Festival Just Achieved A New Record Recognized By The Guinness Book!

Every year during annual Hachioji Festival many people make a line to dance through on National Rd.20. They dance "Bon Odori (Bon Dance)" which is one of Japanese cultural dances for summer. As I have introduced "Bon Odori (Bon Dance)" previously on my another blog, it is the dance for a special term called "Obon" to pray for their deceased family and ancestor. There are many kinds of songs for the "Bon Odori (Bon Dance)", because most areas have their local folk songs and people dance  "Bon Odori (Bon Dance)" with them. Each songs have its own sequence of movement although it is usually not so complicated.

Then this year, Hachioji Festival organization decided to break the record of the world largest  "Bon Odori (Bon Dance)" to be registered by The Guinness Book. Actually next year (2017) is the memorial year of 100th anniversary for Hachioji municipal system, so people wanted to add a special record for it.

On the August 6th, local people for the total of 2130 made a long oblong circle extended to 2 km (1.25 miles) on the Rd.20 and danced "Bon Odori (Bon Dance)" with a local folk song to challenge a new record. Actually it's not only about the number of people, since it is a record of 'dance', dancers had to know all the sequence for the dance and couldn't make a mistake. 

Apparently only one person was cut out from the record because of making mistake for the movements. However, they succeeded to achieve the largest Bon Dance world record recognized by the Guinness Book! Congratulations to Hachioji people!