"The Dragon of the Kuroike Pond" from Nishiharucho (March 5th)

A long time ago, there was a severe drought and the villagers, in desperation, offered prayers for rain to the dragon of the pond of Kuroike. Then suddenly the sky turned black and it started to rain, and liquid-ink like rain lasted for three days. That brought an extremely bountiful harvest to the village that year. From that point, the dragon has been worshipped genuinely by the villagers.

The kids from Nishiharucho handcrafted the rain-making dragon. They teared black and white Japanese paper into pieces and put them on the base board of the dragon. They layered the papers and tried various measures to control the color gradation and supply perspective. They needed so much glue and paper that they ran out of them on the way. However, at the end, everybody was very impressed by the very beautiful dragon finished.