Japanese ascending effects

Japanese ascending effects - Kyoku-do

Here I am again talking about the beauty of Japanese fireworks. This time, about the ascending or rising effects applied to some shells. In "Western World" the main effect of this type we can see are the rising tails (read about it here). But in Japan, beyond that, they have also at least more 4 types of ascending effects: ascending flowers, comets, whistles, thunders (small salutes), etc.

Do you know the Japanese name for "ascending effects"? it's Kyoku-do.

Kyoku-do effects are attached to the shell in a way they ignite during the lift charge explosing and keep attached to the shell during the rising. There are some important details about the manufacture of these effects, specially for the ascending flowers and thunders. The flowers usually are attached nearby because they don't have sufficient power to destroy each other or the main shell during their explosion. But for the thunders, as they use a more powerful explosive (flash powder), this problem may exist so they are mounted with some distance from each other.

A pyrotechnician friend from Japan just sent me a picture of some shells having ascending flowers, look how beauty these pieces of art are:

kyoku-do

You can see a video of how this works:

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