Okiagari-koboshi has more than 400 years of history, and it is one of the oldest local craftworks in the Aizu area. The prevailing theory of its beginning is that the Aizu president, Gamo Ujisato, ordered his subordinates to create them in winter as a side job’s product for the New Year’s market in the early Edo period. Since then, Okiagari-koboshi has been sold at the New Year market called “Tokaichi (tenth day market)” which is held every January 10th in Aizu-Wakamatsu city, Fukushima. In the Tohoku area (Northern East area) of Japan, where the sericulture industry prospered in the Meiji era, Okiagari-koboshi has been the amulet of the silkworm. So people there prayed for Okiagari-koboshi as they can pick good quality cocoons, because silkworms’ molting is said as “picking oneself up (Okiru)” among the Japanese.

Okiagari-koboshi’s “okiagari” means “pick oneself up” in English. The look of Okiagari-koboshi quickly getting up even after falling over has been called “Fall seven times, stand up eight,” a famous Japanese idiom, which has been considered a good omen for a long time.

Okiagari-koboshi’s clothes are generally colored red while currently we have various colored ones. The reason why they are colored red is said to be that red is the color to ward off evil, and that red colored costume is treated as the highest rank. 

In Tokaichi, people roll it over and carefully select and purchase ones that return to an upright position again rapidly. It is said that placing the number of family members plus one on the altar is a wish for the prosperity of descendants. 

The process of making Okiagari-koboshi is as follows: First, wrap a wooden mold with Japanese paper to make a papier-mâché piece. Next, attach one rounded piece of clay as a weight underneath. Finally, paint the whole and draw the eyes and mouth.