🕯️ Obon Lantern Floating (Toro Nagashi)

Toro nagashi ('lantern floating') is a Japanese practice during the Obon season in which small paper lanterns are set adrift on rivers, lakes, and the sea to guide the spirits of ancestors back to the spirit world after their annual visit. Each lantern is inscribed with a family name or message of farewell. The most famous ceremony takes place on the Ōta River in Hiroshima on 6 August, combining ancestral remembrance with commemoration of the atomic bomb victims.