Higashimatsushima calls itself the blue town. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force base here is home to the Blue Impulse aerobatic team, and their aircraft are a familiar sight overhead - part of the ordinary sky rather than an event.

In March 2011 the tsunami reached this far inland and the base flooded. The Blue Impulse aircraft happened to be away on deployment and survived, but the team had nowhere to return to; it was two years before the blue jets came back to this sky.

The town festival was held in summer for decades. From 2026 it moves to autumn. The heat had grown difficult, and the festival is timed to the day before the base's air show, which itself shifted to October. The name changed with it.

The grounds run from the shopping association building near Yamoto Station along Prefectural Route 247. Portable shrines are carried through the streets. Blue carp streamers fly overhead - these are raised for the children who died in the disaster, and have been flown every year since.

After dark the fireworks go up from the base itself. They are close enough that you feel them in your chest rather than only see them.

The following day is the air show. For two days the town spends its time looking up.