Sapporo: A popular annual snow festival started in Sapporo, the capital of the northernmost Japan prefecture of Hokkaido, on Sunday, with food and drink areas set up after being canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year’s Sapporo Snow Festival, set to run until Feb. 11, features a total of 196 snow and ice sculptures at three venues.

Sculptures at the main Odori venue include those themed on “Golden Kamuy,” a popular manga series set in Hokkaido, and those of Es Con Field Hokkaido, the home stadium of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters professional baseball team, which opened in March 2023, and Tsuyoshi Shinjo, manager of the Fighters.

Also on display are a sculpture of an Asian elephant born at Sapporo Maruyama Zoo last year and another of major league baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani, who played for the Fighters before starting his career in the United States.

In 2023, the Sapporo Snow Festival took place at physical venues for the first time in three years, after a suspension brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, attracting about 1.75 million visitors. But food and drink areas were not set up, to prevent infection with the novel coronavirus.

This year’s snow festival is almost the same as the events held before the pandemic. “We want both Japanese and foreign visitors to enjoy” the 2024 Sapporo Snow Festival, an official of the event’s executive committee said.

JIJI Press