Oita was once called Funai, and the city carries this history with ease. The Funai Senshi festival reclaims the old identity each August with a parade that belongs to no other city in Japan: giant figures in Sengoku-period warrior armor — some approaching ten meters — carried through the central shopping district on summer Saturday evenings. The warlords depicted were associated with Oita's specific history, particularly Otomo Sorin, the Christian daimyo who welcomed Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century. The flames and decorative effects that illuminate the floats are a reference to that gunpowder era — this city's particular encounter with the outside world. Oita prefecture is usually entered through Beppu, which has the most dramatic geothermal landscape in Japan. Funai Senshi offers a reason to arrive in August and stay one night longer than planned. The crowds are local. The floats are extraordinary. The city, for one Saturday evening, becomes the capital it once was.