Every year on Aug. 16, at exactly 8 p.m., the first in a series of five giant bonfires is lit on a mountainside overlooking the city of Kyoto, signaling the moment when ancestral ghosts return to the spirit world after visiting relatives on Earth during the three-day O-bon festival. The largest and most iconic blaze, on 大文字山 (Daimonjiyama, Big Letter Mountain), comprises 75 torches arranged in the shape of 大, a kanji meaning "big."

大 (ō, dai, tai) pictures a headless stick figure with legs and arms spread wide. (Note that the kanji for "person," 人, can be seen within 大.) In addition to its core meaning of "big," 大 possesses a variety of related nuances and serves as a powerful building block in an unending array of kanji compound words.

Used in its literal sense of "physically large," 大 may be found in 大陸 (tairiku large/land, continent), 大根 (daikon large/root, Japanese radish), and 粗大ゴミ (sodaigomi shabby/large/trash, large trash items). 大袈裟 (ōgesa exaggerated) is a combination of 大 and 袈裟 (kesa), an ornate stole worn by Buddhist monks. 大脳 (dainō large/brain) is the semantic no-brainer "cerebrum." While Westerners normally associate having large testicles with "daring," its Japanese counterpart 大胆 (daitan big/gall bladder, daring) is reminiscent of the English expression "has the gall (to do something brazen)."