Wouldn’t at all mind hanging a few of these on our walls. These simply decorated kites are made in the Nagasaki Prefecture of Japan. They were often used for kite battles with the strings coated with powdered glass to enable them to cut down their opponent’s kite. The Nagasaki kites traditionally uses three colors: red, white and blue. The colors were inspired by the Dutch flag and signal flags seen on the merchant ships arriving at port Dejima from Indonesia. Many of the kite graphics are simple and geometric sometimes embellished with plants, animals, family crest and Chinese characters. The ones shown above are from the Japanese online shop, Claska.

Images: Courtesy of Claska.