Festivals & Traditions

Japan’s calendar is built around festivals and seasonal customs: some centuries old, some a few weeks long, some wild enough […]

Every November, shrines across Japan fill with small children dressed in elaborate kimono and formal miniature suits, many visibly uncomfortable

Once a year in the mountain town of Nozawa Onsen, dozens of men climb onto a wooden shrine structure while

For four nights every August, the city of Tokushima on the island of Shikoku effectively stops being a normal city.

Most Japanese festival floats are pulled slowly and reverently through the streets. Danjiri floats are sprinted through them — four-ton

Every July, bamboo branches appear outside train stations, shopping malls, and schools across Japan, hung with hundreds of small strips

For about two weeks every spring, weather forecasters in Japan track something no other country’s national news treats with the

Every February 3rd, families across Japan do something that looks, out of context, like a bizarre indoor food fight: someone

For a few days every August, tens of millions of people in Japan pack trains and highways to travel back

For five nights every August, the northern city of Aomori goes dark except for a procession of enormous illuminated floats