Close To 1 Million People Apply For Spots To See Takuya Kimura Dressed As A Warlord In Gifu, Japan
Japan’s two-day Gifu Nobunga Festival took place over the weekend, drawing a whopping 600K visitors.
Gracing the festival on Sunday (Nov 6) was Japanese actor Takuya Kimura, 49. The star, who is one of Japan's biggest stars, led a parade on horseback while dressed in an elaborate warlord outfit.
The festival is held in honour of Oda Nobunga, a 16th-century warlord who is remembered as the country’s first “great unifier”.
Takuya Kimura and Hideaki Ito waving to the crowd
Takuya was also joined by actor Hideaki Ito, 47, to promote their upcoming movie The Legend & Butterfly, in which he also plays a warlord.
The pair, along with other performers, arrived at the festival at 1pm Japan Standard Time and drew a crowd of 15K fans who gathered in the viewing area.
It was reported that over 960K people — more than double the city’s 400K population — had participated in a lottery, in hopes to get tickets to the event.
According to Japan Times, an extra viewing area was set up for those who did not manage to get tickets due to the overwhelming response.
The festival saw a huge turnout on Sunday
In view of the recent crowd crush tragedy in Itaewon, the Japanese police were on high alert and had increased their manpower by at least five times to deal with what they accurately expected to be a large crowd.
Traffic regulations were implemented and stairs around the area were blocked for the safety of visitors. The viewing areas were also split into sections for better crowd control.
Five ambulances arrived at 3pm as some of the people in the crowd had collapsed or started feeling sick, presumably due to standing in a dense crowd for an extended period of time.
Two of these visitors were subsequently sent to the hospital with minor injuries.
Takuya and Hideaki promoting their movie The Legend & Butterfly, which is slated to air in Japan in January next year
The festival, which was canceled the past two years due to the pandemic, was said to have doubled the city's visitor numbers and raked in S$37mil in profits, which is equivalent to 10 per cent of its yearly tourism value.
Of course much of the credit goes to Takuya, for his popularity drew visitors beyond the prefecture.
Attending an event in Gifu after the festival, Takuya said: “I am very happy that we were able to stage the parade safely under controlled circumstances. I am grateful.”
Photos: HK01
