School bag, "randoseru" blessings

Its the time of year for "randoseru" blessings. Randoseru is the school bag of choice in Japan. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that they are not compulsory, although a lot of people seem to think they are. Including my Japanese husband. But for the purpose of this article I did a quick bit of research that confirmed that, contrary to popular belief, they are actually not compulsory. 

Furthermore, it would seem more and more people are opting for alternative school bags in recent years. Possibly due to the price of randoseru. They are very pricey, with even the cheaper options (Nitori randoseru for example), work out at least 40,000 yen, but most are more than 50,000 yen. The word "randoseru" is derived from the Dutch word "ransel," meaning "backpack". The randoseru in Japan are a box shaped backpack made of leather or synthetic leather designed to last for their entire six years of primary school.

Randoseru blessing

Randoseru blessings are conducted at a shrine, usually from around mid February to mid March, before the child enters elementary school. You need to book in advance for a lot of the randoseru blessing ceremonies as they only perform the ritual on select dates and for limited numbers. Children dress up for the occasion, most wearing the outfit they will wear to their elementary school entrance ceremony.

It is much like any other blessing at a shrine; you pay a fee and a priest performs the ritual in a short ceremony.  At the randoseru blessings my family attended our child was given a mini randoseru, sembei  with a randoseru motif on it and other religious artifacts as a commemoration of the event.  It is a really nice way to mark the big occasion of entering elementary school. We did it with close friends and their children and went out to lunch after, making it a really lovely, memorable day for all involved.