The Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival is an annual fireworks festival held on the last Saturday in July, over the Sumidagawa near Asakusa. Unlike fireworks displays in other parts of the world, the Sumidagawa Hanabi Taikai is a competition held between rival pyrotechnic groups. Each group tries to out-do the last, and the result is an incredible variety of fireworks, not just in different colors and patterns, but forming shapes as complicated as Doraemon, Pikachu, or kanji.