The Japanese school year, like the Japanese fiscal year, ends on March 31, so this year is winding down, and yesterday was the graduation ceremony for the oldest class at Anthony's preschool, equivalent to kindergarten in The States. From early April, those kids will be starting first grade (and Anthony will be starting his final year, to graduate this time next year).

Graduations – from preschool, from elementary school, from middle school, from high school, and from college – are all big events. Yesterday, the graduating kids were wearing their finest, some in traditional Japanese clothes, some in western clothes.

Parents, relatives, friends — pretty much everyone brought big bouquets of flowers for the kids. I've never seen so many flower arrangements.

After the ceremonies, the kids and parents assembled outside for a group shot. Like the kids, some of the moms were in kimono and some in western clothes. Like the kids, all were dressed very nicely. The moms in kimono made up the last row in the gathering for the group photo, which made for the perfect shot as far as I was concerned.

I just love seeing folks dressed in traditional Japanese clothing, so that's what I focused on mostly.

This little girl was exquisite...

Most dads wore suits, but some were in traditional formal wear called hakama.

Fumie keeps trying to get me into a hakama, but I'm a tall white guy with blue eyes, so I think the combination would be as appropriate as ballet slippers on a cow.

Other posts in the last year or so that have featured women in kimono are listed in “Related posts” box below.