This is more a cultural post, and is not as in depth as it may seem! A brief break from Fire Emblem Fates things today to talk about this.
Today is the Tanabata Festival in Japan. Tanabata 七夕 (the seventh night) takes place on July 7th every year (in some areas of Japan), and is also known as the “Star Festival.” The legend goes that Orihime (represented by the star Vega) and Hikoboshi (represented by the star Altair) are lovers separated by the Milky Way and are only allowed to meet once a year on the seventh night of the seventh month. It is a rather “star crossed lovers” plot, though not exactly tragic as one may expect.
On this day, wishes are written on strips of paper and attached to wish trees. It is usually written by those in elementary school, but some provinces still decorate their streets quite elaborately.
On another note, sometimes this festival takes place a month later on August 7th, or anywhere in between, as it was originally based on the seventh night of the seventh month of a lunar calender.
You can read more about the origins of the festival as well as the story behind Orihime and Hikoboshi here or on wikipedia, or by just searching some culture blogs.
What I wanted to talk about was just various media you may have seen that reference Tanabata in some form or another, be it via a reference of a character’s birthday, or from the strips of paper attached to something.
This is not an exhaustive list at all. In fact, these are the first few things that come to mind in memory. There are plenty more examples out there! Feel free to provide anymore you don’t see here in the comments and I may add them too!
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