Shiomibashi Shopping Street Readies Remembrance Day Sales, Including a Limited "Lullaby Manju"

The Shiomibashi shopping street association announced on the 6th that it had asked member shops to prepare limited items ahead of an expected rise in visitors for Sunday's ceremony. The centerpiece is a "Lullaby Manju" sweet from a confectioner founded in the Meiji era, its wrapping decorated with waves and windows in a nod to the Shore Lullaby. "This is a quiet anniversary for this street — not quite a celebration, not quite a memorial," said association chairman Tamura Tadao, 63. "We wanted something that sits quietly alongside it." Following the previously reported unified lighting for Autumn Window Day, shop windows along the street remained lit through the evening of the 6th as well.

At the same time, the area around the venue will be closed to vehicles from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the 7th, as previously reported, prompting some shops to move up their delivery schedules. "It feels a little tasteless to push sales too hard on a day with restrictions like this," Tamura said, "but it also feels sad to have nothing ready for people who do come by. We're looking for the right balance." He said no sales targets had been set: "This is our first time doing this, so we haven't gotten that far yet." The Lullaby Manju will go on sale in limited quantities from the morning of the 7th; following the song's own lack of a printed translation, the wrapping deliberately carries no explanatory text.