Edward VIII with his staff wearing Happi 1922

A is a traditional tube-sleeved

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

coat A coat is typically an outer garment for the upper body, worn by any gender for warmth or fashion. Coats typically have long sleeves and are open down the front, and closing by means of buttons, zippers, hook-and-loop fasteners (AKA velcro), ...

, usually worn only during festivals. typically feature symbols and/or text on the lapels, with a larger design on the back of the coat, typically the name or the festival or the participating association; the

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

for () may also be present. Originally worn for display of the , or family emblem, were worn by house servants as a uniform. Firefighters also wore coats, with the crest on the back of the coat displaying the group with which they were associated;Drazen, Patrick. ''Anime explosion!: the what? why? & wow! of Japanese animation''. Stone Bridge Press, 2003.
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"In time, these groups of fire-fighters, adopting uniforms consisting of the short jackets called ''happi'' emblazoned with the ''mon'' (crest) of the particular group, so that one gang could be distinguished from another." these were distinct from the () also worn by firefighters, constructed from heavily-quilted cotton layers designed to hold a large quantity of water and thus protect the wearer. In the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, firefighters were paid not only for actual firefighting activity but also for promptness and presence at the scene of a fire. Thus, wearing conspicuous and dancing on intact roofs near fires with was essential for them. In English, the term is most often translated as "happi coat" or "happy coat". are typically blue, with designs in red, black, and white, though variations with a number of different colours are also seen in modern day Japan. Modern coats may be made of

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

polyester Polyester is a category of polymers that contain one or two ester linkages in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include some natura ...

fabrics.

References

Japanese upper-body garments Japanese words and phrases {{Japan-culture-stub