花火 · 五代目
Hanabi
The Kawaragi Fireworks Guild · est. 1873 On the Tonegawa, north of the Jōshū plain
The guild's craft
We measure a show by its silences.
A shell climbs for nine seconds. In that hush ten thousand people on the river bank stop talking, stop fanning themselves, stop breathing — and the dark water goes still enough to hold the whole sky. Then the break. Since 1873 the Kawaragi family has packed every star by hand: pine charcoal, rice paste, patience. The colour lasts two seconds. The silence is ours to shape; the colour is merely how we end it.
When a shell breaks perfectly round, the old crowds shouted the maker's name. Listen for ours: Tamaya!
Shell Catalog 玉名鑑
Four breaks, one river
Every shell below is live. Choose a caliber, press fire, and watch the sky above this page — the mortar stands on our barge, mid-river. Climb time is true to gravity; larger shells climb longer.
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No. 07
Kiku Chrysanthemum
The strictest test of a maker. Every star carries a tail, so the break must be a perfect sphere — one lazy afternoon at the packing bench and the whole town sees your ellipse. Gold into amber, edge sharp as a compass line.
tailed stars · sharp sphere · burn 1.8 s
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No. 12
Botan Peony
The chrysanthemum's quieter sister: same sphere, no tails. Pure points of colour that swell and vanish, pink to rose to a violet ember. Our peony stars are rolled thirty-eight layers deep and cut the night like pinpricks.
bare stars · no trails · burn 1.5 s
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No. 19
Yanagi Willow
Stars cut heavy with charcoal burn long and fall far. The break droops into gold-green branches that reach down for the river and very nearly touch their own reflection — the only shell we aim at the water, not the sky.
drooping streamers · long fall · burn 3.8 s
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No. 23
Kamuro Crown
Named for a child's bobbed haircut. Slow-burning gold that refuses to leave: the crown hangs, glitters, sinks almost to the far bank's lanterns before it lets go. Fourth-generation Isao spent eleven years on this star. It shows.
persistent glitter · crown 4.5 s · signature shell
The calibers 1 sun 寸 = 3.03 cm
The 12-sun is fired from a steel mortar sunk in the far bank and is permitted twice a night. The workhorse of any river program is the 4-sun; the 8-sun is where a maker's hand shows.
Summer Program 夏の番組
The 2026 season
- Sat 18 JulyKawaragi River Opening 川開きLeft bank, from first dark. The season's proof shell is a single 8-sun kiku at 19:40 sharp.4,200 shells
- Sat 25 JulyNumata Lantern FloatFired between drifting lanterns; nothing larger than 6-sun, out of respect for the paper.1,800 shells
- Sat 1 AugTwin-Barge NightTwo barges, four hundred meters apart, answering each other shell for shell.6,000 shells
- Sat 8 AugŌmagari Competition — guest entryAway fixture. Free-style 10-sun, judged. Second place in 2024 and 2025; Ren does not discuss it.competition
- Sat 15 AugObon MemorialOne white chrysanthemum every minute, for one hour. No music, no announcements. The river does the rest.60 shells
- Sat 29 AugSeason Finale — Sky of a Hundred CrownsCloses with our 12-sun kamuro over a gold strobe volley. Book the far bank by June.12,000 shells
The guild accepts two private commissions each season outside the fixed calendar. Write to the office in winter; we plan a summer sky six months before we pack it.
Lineage 五代の系譜
Five generations
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I
Kawaragi Genzō 川原木源蔵
master 1873 – 1901
A saltpeter merchant's third son who fired his first shell off a rice barge to mark the end of a cholera summer. Founded the workshop; set the house rule that still stands — every star passes through a family hand.
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II
Kawaragi Shinpachi 川原木新八
master 1901 – 1934
Brought magnesium white to the valley and burned off both eyebrows proving it. After the 1923 earthquake he fired three silent white shells over the river every night for a month, for the dead of Tokyo.
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III
Kawaragi Tomiko 川原木富子
master 1934 – 1968
The guild's first woman master. Kept the license alive through the wartime powder ban by making signal flares, then spent the 1950s perfecting the peony core — thirty-eight layers, rolled wet, dried on the roof in June wind.
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IV
Kawaragi Isao 川原木勲
master 1968 – 2002
Eleven years on a single star formula: the slow gold that became our kamuro crown. Refused every offer to mass-produce it. "A crown you can buy in a box," he said, "is a hat."
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V
Kawaragi Ren 川原木蓮
master 2002 – present
Choreographs firing sequences on a laptop and still packs stars at the same bench as Genzō. Under Ren the guild fires eleven towns a summer. Her rule for the finale: "Fill the sky once. Then stop while they're still looking up."
The Finale 大団円
You have reached the end of the program
By Ren's rule, there is only one thing left to do. Look up. The page will get out of the way.