“Special exception” unique to the historic first-selling culture

Sendai Hatsuuri has a long history, and is even mentioned in the Sendai Annual Events, a document from the feudal period. In Japan, January 2nd is considered an auspicious day for starting things, and it is said that the first sale was held on the 2nd even back then.

Sendai's first sales, which are ''too good to be true'' and sometimes come with prizes that exceed the purchase price, would normally be regulated by the Fair Trade Commission on the grounds of ''excessive prizes.'' However, because it is a ''traditional event that has continued since the feudal period'', Sendai was granted special permission (currently it is uniform throughout the country).

Incidentally, in the shopping streets in the center of Sendai city, many storefronts are decorated with colored paper or figurines of smiling men in kimonos, representing the god of good fortune and prosperous business. This man was called ''Sendai Shiro'' and was a real person who lived from the end of the Edo period to around 1908. In the Chris Road shopping district, which is crowded with first-time buyers, there is Mitakiyama Fudoin, where Sendai Shiro is enshrined, so why not stop by and join hands with him?