One off-day during my business stay in Akita city, I decided to go to the top of the Oga-peninsula, which was near Akita citry and projected into the Sea of Japan or East Sea. According to the tourist information around Akita train station, this peninsula had good hot-springs, a beautiful mountain, and traditional fierce monster house, "Namahage" museum. To say correctly, Namahage was a monster-costume that seemed to be used for locals for a traditional event around here.
I'm not quite sure about the event, but know a little, 'cause sometimes I saw the event broadcasted by TV news. According to my imperfect knowledge, this event was a little bit similar with Halloween, especially in the United States.
In Halloween, kids will dress up as witches, on the other hand, in Namahage event, usually local adults will dress up as Namahage, a fierce monster.
In Halloween, dressed kids will ask neighbors for treats, mostly candys or sweets, on the other, Namahage-adults will ask neighbors for bad- boys and girls. In case of successfuly finding any kids (not necessarily really bad ones), the Namahages threaten them to be nice for their parents or everyone with Namahage's fierce face. Usually, in this event, kids will wail and wail badly because of just a simple fear, and it makes a TV news.
Anyway, I took a train that took about an hour to reach Oga station from Akita city.
Here was Oga city, Japan.
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