Kurashiki Matsuri

Last weekend my buddy Trev called me and told me to come out to check out a festival in Kurashiki. He was there with his wife, Wakako, and their son, Noah. As it's only 15 minutes by train, I headed out to meet them. I'm not really sure what the festival was all about, but it consisted of probably 20 or 30 different groups of people dancing (mostly older women or children), usually employing a fan or a baton. Most of the groups had elaborate costumes.
While the groups were dancing, this dude in the top picture, and others like him, were going around scaring the crap out of little children. Apparently once the kids started crying, they would give them candy. Quite a deal for the kids.

Japan is the land of cute, and so companies like Disney, and whoever makes Winnie the Pooh and Snoopy, make a huge amount of money mainly from Japanese women, who seem to own at least 50 different products featuring their favourite character. Because of this fascination with things that are cute, it would not be a festival without ridiculously cute company mascots. The one in the middle picture was walking around getting booted in the ass by kids. We tried to guess what it's supposed to be, but are still undecided. Trev thought it might be some kind of loaf of bread, but that doesn't explain the leaves growing out of its head.
In the last picture, you can see a group of older women with their candy cane-like batons.