Uchimizu for the Akiba crowd

The practice of uchimizu is, these days, not quite as aesthetically important as Wikipedia makes it out to be, but is still a surprisingly prominent part of Japanese culture. Originally done with wooden buckets and ladles  to keep down the dust on ancient Yamato streets, you can now find workers of the social welfare system hosing down street corners left and right, in some kind of perverted version of the tradition, alongside stern-faced old shopkeepers tossing out buckets of both clean and dirty water onto the pavement in the morning.

More recently, the practice is being promoted as a way to combat Tokyo’s “heat island syndrome,” with Web sites chirping that uchimizu can cool a space by a mighty 2 degrees Celsius, though this is a bit of an urban myth. Promotion isn’t as rampant as things like Candle Night, but events were held this summer here and there to raise awareness of the custom’s reported benefits.

An interesting thing about uchimizu is the way it’s to be promoted either by or toward anime and gaming fans. Girl band Perfume lent their voices and persona to a public service announcement two years ago, and for the past several years a neighbourhood has been organizing the Uchimizukko Dai-shugo event around Akihabara station. While it changes slightly every year, this past event featured a long line of girls dressed as maids, presumably from different maid cafes and presumably to promote their cafe, gleefully showering the pavement with dirty bathwater, water from the coffee pot or water collected from beneath houseplants–keeping with the sustainability theme. Some girls got a bit too in character, however, with some chirping that they had carried the water from Mars or other planets, and one “angel maid” claiming that she had accumulated the water from the dew that collected on her wings.

With a seemingly endless row of overdressed young women in the sweltering heat pandering to the cameras while some passionate male fans cried out their love from behind, the entire thing was a bit ridiculous, but made for an interesting photo op.

Regarding the benefits of uchimizu, ironically enough this year an event was canceled in “Japan’s hottest city” Tajimi after authorities ruled that the water evaporating all at once actually makes the area hotter than it would be with no water at all.