Toshiya - Pretty Japanese Girls in Kimono doing Kyudo (Japanese Archery) in Kyoto
At Sanjusangendo Temple in Kyoto, row upon row of gorgeously clad Japanese girls in kimono come to shoot arrows at the Toshiya Archery Event. Many of them are celebrating their coming of age and they wear a special kimono to mark this known as a furisode which is a long-sleeved kimono. Archers both male and female, master and student shoot two arrows each at a group of four round targets. Toshiya is an event that goes back some four hundred years though today it is significantly different. In the past, Toshiya was predominately for men to show off their prowess and skill with a bow. Today, archers shoot at targets 60 meters distant but in the past archers would shoot the entire length of the long Sanjusangendo Temple which measures about 120 meters. There were a variety of competitions. Archers would try to score as many target hits as they could out of 100 or 1000 shots. The true test of strength was the 24-hour competition where an archer would try to shoot continuously the
