Every year in the middle of December, thousands of people flock to Tokyo's Asakusa Sensoji Temple for the annual hagoita market to buy oshie hagoita, a decorative battledore that serves as both a New Year's decoration and a good-luck charm.

The paddles, decorated with elaborate cloth figures, depict scenes from kabuki plays and reflect iki, the chic, popular culture of the Edo Period. Popular images include a geisha in kimono with downcast eyes, a tattooed firefighter wearing a headband and holding a banner, or a brightly dressed princess with elaborate hair ornaments.

"Like the way it hits a shuttlecock (and sends it flying away), the battledore is believed to drive away evil spirits," says Yukio Minamikawa, 70, a second-generation oshie hagoita artisan, at his at-home workshop in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward.

"Just before the market season is the busiest time of the year," says Minamikawa, whose walls are filled with battledores of all patterns and dimensions, ranging from palm-size to life-size. "It's hell right now. You can't do this kind of boring work, unless you really like it," says Minamikawa playfully.

Oshie is the art form of creating a three-dimensional effect, much like a relief, using cloth and cotton. The technique began as a handicraft by women who used cloth trimmings to decorate folding screens and incense boxes.

In the late Edo Period, the craft was applied to the battledore, which was then used as a talisman against evil and used in a girls' New Year's game similar to badminton. When craftsmen began to draw kabuki characters on the paddles, the most popular performing art in Edo helped to make the popularity of the craft skyrocket. People at the annual hagoita market vied for a limited number of battledores depicting kabuki stars in the year's best-selling plays.

The images are actually collages shaped from intricate combinations of cloth, cotton and paper. The fabrics, which are usually richly embroidered silk or satin damask, are cut into paper-pattern pieces. These represent everything from a body to a sleeve, a belt, a layered collar or headband. To create the illusion of a seamless whole, cotton wadding is inserted between each set of fabric and the paper pieces, and the edges are pressed with a small heated iron.

All parts are then stuck together with washi paper and rice paste to make a body. The face and arms, made of thick paper, are prepared by a mensoshi, an artisan specializing in shaping facial features.

At the peak of battledore production for this year's market, Minamikawa's wife, Yoshiko, and a staff member were deeply absorbed in assembling the face, body, hands and other ornamental parts of a girl in kimono to be placed on a kiri (paulownia wood) paddle.

"Looking at the figure on the paddle, it often appears different from what we had imagined," Yoshiko says, holding the paddle in front of her to inspect it. "Everything is done by hand. It really requires patience."

In addition to being collectors' items for kabuki lovers, battledores have been admired as protective charms for newborn girls, newlyweds, store openings and housewarming gifts. The most extravagant 1.8-meter battledoors were often a relflection of the prosperity a customer was enjoying, Minamikawa says.

"Usually the customers are people who are in thriving businesses. In the 1930s, it was ryotei (exclusive Japanese-style restaurant). Then it was manufacturing companies, and later, bars and cabarets."

With the prolonged recession, such generous customers have become rare and the battledore industry is not doing as well as it once did, Mi-namikawa says. But every year, the battledore market signals the approaching New Year for people nationwide.

"It's gonna be a hectic, exhausting three days again," says Minamikawa, smiling. There are some things that just don't change.