Where Aomori's Nebuta moves fast and loud, Hirosaki's Neputa is slow and contemplative. The floats are fan-shaped — painted on one side with warriors from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Water Margin, and on the other with serene portraits of women. Front and back are meant to be read as a single work: the violence of battle, and the stillness that follows. The sound that carries the procession is the tsugaru joppari great drum — joppari meaning stubborn, or unyielding, a word the people of Tsugaru use to describe themselves. The drum is deep and unhurried, and it sets the pace for everything. Records show that the fifth lord of the Hirosaki domain watched a neputa procession in 1722. The festival grew from the culture of a castle town, shaped by samurai aesthetics and a long winter's worth of accumulated energy. Thirty kilometers separate Hirosaki from Aomori city. Same prefecture, same summer, an entirely different festival — and an entirely different sense of what a festival can be. A national intangible folk cultural property.