THREE BASIC TYPES OF JAPANESE SHELLS

Japanese round shells fall into three basic types as to its structure. Namely WARIMONO, POKAMONO and KOWARIMONO. There is a difference in each as far as structure and process of breaking shell.
Warimono, casings break to pieces and scatter each stars equally far and wide. Pokamono, casings divide two hemispheres at a joint equator. Then scatter the contents of stars. Kowarimono are in middle between WARIMONO and POKAMONO.

Wari-mono
Stars inside of casings are packed closely. And breaking powder is set in the center. Kraft paper is pasted outside of casings over and over. This is Warimono. Chrysanthemum or peony are typical of Warimono shell. The balance of tension of casings to power of burst makes it large and fine circle.

Kowari-mono
Contains many smaller round shells inside. They burst in all directions and bloom in form of many small flowers. Shells also contains much less breaking powder than Warimono. Floral shell of shells are typical of Kowarimono shell.

Poka-mono
In these shells, the casings divide the two hemispheres at equator and does not contain much of breaking powder. Bloom is much smaller in scale than warimono. With different contents, many various kinds of shells are posssible such as Flash, Bee and bee, are typical of Pokamono shell.

OTHER TYPES OF SHELLS

Chinese Ball Shells

Chinese round shells are ball sphere-shaped or pear-shaped and also have basic types of structures just like the Japanese shells..

Cylinder or Canister Shells

In these shells, the casings are long-cylinder like, some made of cardboard, or wrapped in Kraft paper and sealed at the ends. Most cylinder shells are either domestic (made in U.S.A,) Spanish, Italian, or European-made. The break is also non-symmetrical and covers a wide area in the sky.

Double and Triple-Piled a.k.a. "Peanut" Shells

Contains two or more shells of the same size, stacked on top of each other, fused together where both shells are launched simultaneously. Types of shells vary on the manufacturer, but many color and effect combinations are available upon request from the manufacturers.

Effect Boxes, Finale Boxes, Barrages, a.k.a. "Cakes"

Cakes can come in many sizes and shapes. Anywhere between 1" to 4" sizes are available. They consist of many single shot shells (or Roman Candles) bundled together, and fused at the bottom. These Special Effect Boxes are constructed to fire instantly. The safety fuse is normally on the side of the box. Other new types of cakes are Fan Cakes and Angled Cakes. They fire volleys of effects in a fan, or in a certain type of shape such as "V" shaped, "W" shaped and "IV" shaped. Each tube is a single shot Roman Candle that fires to a height of 60-80 feet. Cakes are generally used for ground displays or for finales.

RISING ATTACHMENTS

Rising Attachments are fireworks or smaller shells which are attached outside of the main shell. It's launched along with the main shell and blooms with small flowers or makes a blast sound while rising before the main shell blooms. These attached fireworks are called "Rising attachment or Rising effect". A shell mounted with this effect is called "shell with rising effect".

These attachments are very enjoyable and seen just before the main bloom of the shell.
There are various kinds of attachments in Japan. Making and mounting these effects takes a great deal of time. Therefore, most elaborate effects are mounted on shells only for a competition.

                
             Pictured are some of these rising attachments.
For the "shell with branched off stars" effect, rising dragon effect is added to stacked ten branch off stars (total twenty pieces).

(Photos and articles courtesy of Japan-Fireworks.com)