Some scenes from Tenjin Matsuri - a 1000-year old festival in Osaka. Tenjin Matsuri is held on July 24-25th (the second day being the biggest one) to honor the Tenjin, the God of Learning. The festival though is more to Tenjin's earlier attributes when he was prayed to in order to placate his angry spirit and avoid natural disasters and disease.
At 3:30 the Rikutogyo (land procession) starts with 3000 people in historical costumes and 6:00 the Funatogyo (boat procession) begins on Okawa River from Tenjinbashi Bridge. There's also fireworks but it was so crowded I wasn't able to make it over there.