A visit to the Uchiwa Matsuri in Kumagaya, Japan, makes for a pleasant surprise
Summer time is the time for matsuri — or festivals — in Japan. It seems like just about every city, town and village has some form of matsuri going on throughout the summer. Some matsuri are famous and pull in people […]

Most soccer fans worldwide whose attention and passion were lavished on the recent World Cup are likely unaware that the Japanese (and Chinese) have been playing different forms of football for more than a millennium. They’re not alone—a lot of Japanese don’t know that either!

[…]

Here are some vidoes of the Soma Nomaoi Festival that I wrote about the other day.
Samurai Parade on Horseback

Traditional Fan Dance

Click here to read more. . . »

Riders warming up

Singing Official

Race

Mock Battle

[…]

The Soma Nomaoi festival of northern Japan features three days of parades, horses and heroics

Samurai and horses in traditional attire parade through the street

Pint-sized Pikemen
In the northeast region of Japan, in the prefecture of Fukushima, the Soma Nomaoi, an age-old tradition handed down from samurai times, is celebrated to this day with […]

Last weekend the 22nd Aoba festival was held right here in Sendai, and sure enough, I was there and took tons of pictures. According to the official Aoba festival homepage, the festival finds its roots during the Edo period, and was originally held in honour of Date Tadamune, one of the Date clan leaders. Originally […]

During Ebisu Matsuri in Osaka, I ran across this vendor selling takoyaki which must have been three times the normal size! Maybe four.

An entire mini octopus fits inside, rather than just a piece of leg. I didn’t try one of these. Even while eating regularly sized takoyaki I often end up burning the inside […]

Japundit regularly features posts describing the many festivals held throughout the country. The size and content of some of these festivals are often impressive, but equally impressive are the smaller events held in out-of-the-way towns that few people other than the locals know about.
A case in point is the Mudslinging Festival held every year in […]

Nagoya’s spring Honen-Sai aims at good harvest

The shocking Guest of Honor at the Honen-Sai Fertility Festival
Japanese Shinto rituals can at times be solemn affairs but at Tagata Shrine near Nagoya, it’s rather hard to keep a straight face when an enormous 13-foot (3-meter) long penis rolls by. The gargantuan member is the guest of […]

Early samurai history, when a bow and arrow was a weapon of honor, discipline

A yabusame archer wearing formal hunting clothes from the 13th century
It has often been said: “The sword is the soul of the samurai.” Much has been written in Japan and around the world about the Japanese samurai sword and its nigh-mystical […]

Most festivals celebrated in Japan have a tradition stretching back centuries, and some date back a thousand years. Then again, Japanese will look for any pretext to have a good time, so some festivals have been invented quite recently. Unlike the traditional festivals, they have no historical or religious basis.
One of these is the Hamamatsu […]

As funny as it may seem, shucking off your shoes and socks and walking across hot coals—known as firewalking—has become a well-known part of motivational and management seminars in the United States. Motivational expert Anthony Robbins teaches it, and companies send their management personnel to seminars to learn how to do it in the hope […]

Young and old meet to commemorate an ancient visit of a golden creature

Once a year in Asakusa, located in the northeast edge of Tokyo, a special kind of early spring ritual dance is held. The dance — called “Kinryu-no-Mae” in Japanese — is conducted not by people but by a golden dragon. […]

Long-time friends of Japundit are familiar with our reporting on the kaleidoscopic breadth of festivals held throughout the year in Japan, many of which feature presentations or performances that are often stunning. Not every festival in the country is a big production, however, though the smaller, lesser-known festivals can be just as interesting and quirky […]

Historic Japanese town’s Snow Festival smaller but no less spectacular than Sapporo’s

Sapporo’s Yuki Matsuri — Snow Matsuri — may get all of the international press, and rightly so because of its incredible colossal snow sculptures that dwarf visitors, but neighboring Otaru has a snow festival of its own that, while small and […]

Sapporo’s gigantic snow and ice sculptures draw large international crowds

Every year huge crowds descend upon Sapporo, the capital city of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, to gaze and gawk at staggeringly huge monuments constructed of snow and ice during Sapporo’s week-long Yuki Matsuri — Snow Festival. Numerous sculptures of ice and snow […]

That Shinto priest may be aiming his arrow at Kinkaku-ji, the famous Buddhist temple in Kyoto, but it doesn’t mean that Japan is roiled by religious strife. Rather, he’s participating in a joint Shinto-Buddhist ceremony of a kind once common but seldom seen since the Meiji Restoration. In fact, it was the first […]

As David Weber’s photos earlier this week showed, Japan’s weather this winter is downright frigid—even here in the sunnier climes of Kyushu, where it seldom falls below freezing.
Most sensible people bundle up to go outdoors when the temperature drops, but not the boys from Bungotakada, Oita Prefecture. Last Sunday, they stripped down to their loincloths […]

Gigantic floats, chanting pullers and spectacular fireworks draw thousands of revelers

The Chichibu Yo-Matsuri (Night Festival), dating back to the 18th century, is one of the three most famous night festivals in Japan. The small city of Chichibu lies two hours northwest of Tokyo in the mountainous regions of Chichibu National Park. Despite the cold, […]

Court nobles and Imperial guards represent the Fujiwara Period (897-1185), a time when the powerful noble family, the Fujiwara, controlled the governance of the country as ministers to the imperial court. One of the most powerful Fujiwara ministers was Fujiwara-no-Michinaga (966-1027). He arranged to have his daughters marry the emperors and have his grandson […]

Japan’s Imperial city on full display during Jidai Matsuri

Every year on Oct. 22, the city of Kyoto celebrates its long history with the Jidai Matsuri — “Festival of the Ages” — a long procession of participants dressed in the various fashions of Japanese history. The festival was created in 1895 to mark the 1,100 […]