This is kō #1 — the calendar's own starting line. 立春 (Risshun) is the first of the twenty-four sekki, and in the old lunar-linked reckoning it was treated as the true turn of the year, even though the modern January 1st new year now falls five weeks earlier. 東風 is usually read こち (kochi) in everyday Japanese, but this kō reads it はるかぜ (harukaze, "spring wind") instead — both names for the same seasonal east wind, its direction tied to the old Chinese five-elements association of east with spring. The claim being made is a confident one: the wind has already turned, even on days when the cold hasn't visibly broken yet.
The day immediately before Risshun is Setsubun — the seventy-second kō's own closing subject, mamemaki and all. This kō picks up literally the next morning: the demons have been driven out, the old year's cold is nominally over, and the calendar starts counting again from one.
Deep in season through February, prized for ankō-nabe and its liver, considered a delicacy in its own right.
Good through late winter, classic in a simple miso soup.
Coming into season now, with a firmer, slightly bitter edge compared to sweeter winter mikan.
The vegetable most associated with early spring in Japan — slightly bitter, usually blanched and dressed with mustard or sesame.
Looser-leaved and sweeter than winter cabbage, starting to appear now.
Mansaku's thin, ribbon-like yellow petals often open even before ume's — one of the most commonly cited explanations for its name is まんず咲く (manzu saku), a Tōhoku dialect phrase meaning roughly "blooms first of all." A second, unrelated tradition reads the same name as 万作, "ten thousand-fold harvest," since a heavy bloom was taken as a good omen for the coming grain crop.
A paper charm, originally posted at the gates of Zen temples and later adopted by ordinary households, pasted up at the doorway on the morning of Risshun itself. Written vertically, the four characters 立春大吉 happen to be left-right symmetrical, reading identically whether seen from the front or the back — the folk explanation being that a demon who has already slipped inside the house, glancing back at the doorway, would see the same characters facing outward and assume, wrongly, that it had never actually entered. The charm stays up for a full year, until it's replaced with a fresh one at the next Risshun.
"East wind" — Worth keeping distinct from 春一番 (haru ichiban, "spring's first gust"), the well-known named windstorm the Japan Meteorological Agency tracks each year — that one is specifically a southerly wind, arriving anywhere from Risshun through the spring equinox, and is a different phenomenon from the easterly kochi this kō is actually named for, even though both get folded into loose "the spring wind has arrived" talk.
解凍 (kaitō) is a compound meaning simply "to thaw" — the same word used today for defrosting food — paired here with 東風, read はるかぜ rather than the far more common こち, to mark specifically that this is the wind doing the thawing, not just any spring air.
The Japan Meteorological Agency doesn't issue a haru ichiban announcement for these regions at all — a strong southerly this early doesn't reliably bring the same spring-like warm-up there that it does further south, so the named phenomenon simply isn't tracked in those areas.
Printable versions are easy to find, or write the four characters yourself vertically on a plain strip of paper.
Its thin yellow petals are easy to miss at a glance — worth seeking out specifically rather than waiting to notice it by accident.
"When the east wind blows, send your fragrance to me, plum blossoms — though your master is gone, don't forget the spring."
This kō's whole claim rests on a shift in wind rather than a shift in warmth — the two don't necessarily arrive together.
A useful moment to reset seasonal habits or intentions, five weeks after the January 1st version of the same idea.
Michizane wrote this leaving the capital for exile in Dazaifu, addressing the plum tree in his own garden as though it could actually carry out the request — and legend later obliged him, with the Tobiume ("flying plum") said to have uprooted itself and followed him south rather than stay behind. The poem doesn't ask to be remembered. It asks the ordinary seasonal thing to keep happening regardless, whether or not he's there to see it. What's still supposed to keep blooming in your own life, on schedule, in a place you can no longer be present for?