All About Japan

Bidding Seniors Farewell with Sand Art

Art Anime One Piece Naruto Shiga

As March rolls around, the end of the Japanese school year approaches, where seniors have to bid farewell to their teachers and lowerclassmen. At Shiga Prefecture’s Ayaha High School, the students have a very special tradition of sending off the high school seniors: creating an unbelievable sand-art masterpiece on the tennis courts.

https://twitter.com/ayahakoukou/status/703006677184872448

The attention to detail on Naruto's face is very impressive, especially considering the only materials used to create it were sand and the green tennis court underneath it.

But possibly even more impressive is that creating spectacular sand art for the graduating seniors is a 10-year-long tradition at Ayaha High School.

https://twitter.com/ayahakoukou/status/571145303157444608

For example, One Piece’s Luffy wished the graduating class of 2015 good luck.

And to think, all of the sand in these works of art will slowly be blown away in the wind, going in their own directions and finding new places to live… just like all of the graduating students. How symbolic!

Er, that is, that’s what would happen if the students weren’t required to clean all the sand off the courts immediately following the end of the graduation ceremony. Kind of hurts the “slowly parting from each other” symbolism, but hey, the tennis club has to practice somewhere!

Either way, this tradition is still an incredible display of gratitude from the younger students to those graduating. Let’s hope it continues for as many years as there are anime characters for them to draw.

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