Written by Patrick Balfe
Tokyo events for Monday, September 22, to Sunday, September 28, 2025.
There are lots of good excuses to escape the city this week. Head to Chiba for the Ōhara Naked Festival, check out the spider lilies in Saitama, or watch some fireworks in Ibaraki. Or, if you’d rather stay in Tokyo, there’s plenty to check out here too, like art in Roppongi, comedy in Shibuya, music in Ariake, and heaps more. Take a look at some of our favorites below.
Japan Soca Weekend
Japan Soca Weekend is Asia’s largest music festival dedicated to Soca, a type of Caribbean music. The festival includes four main events: Soca Magic, Rum N Bass, J’ouvert in Japan, and Island Nations.
HerRise Workshop and Open Day
HerRise is a hands-on, results-driven program designed for women entrepreneurs and startup founders seeking to scale their businesses in Japan and globally. With the help of guest speakers and mentors, the event will focus on using PR effectively to promote your brand or business.
Ōhara Naked Festival
Before you get your pervy hopes up, the Ōhara Naked Festival (Ōhara hadaka matsuri) would be more aptly named the Ōhara “semi-naked” Festival. The participants’ costumes are actually quite modest these days; they used to have buttocks bared, but now we have to settle for chests and shoulders only.
Free Shakuhachi Concert in Tokyo
The shakuhachi is a traditional Japanese bamboo flute with a history stretching back centuries. At this concert, you’ll hear performers from several major schools of shakuhachi, including Fuke Myōan-ryū, Kinko-ryū, and Tozan-ryū.
Comandante Championship Japan
Come for the golden grinder, stay for the buzz. 24 baristas will take the stage, each brewing with Comandante’s German-crafted hand grinder.
| At the door: ¥3,000 | ||
Kita Fireworks Festival
There’s no rule that fireworks festivals have to be held in the summer, which means we can enjoy them on a crisp autumn evening on the Arakawa Riverbank, close to Akabane Station.
Koidegawa Spider Lily Festival
A wholesome community flower viewing event. This is an annual event held along a three-kilometer stretch of river in Fujisawa City, Chigasaki City, and Samukawa Town.
Ōarai Marine Fireworks Festival
For the 70th anniversary of the town’s founding, Ōarai in Ibaraki Prefecture will celebrate with a beefed-up version of its annual fireworks festival.
Namaste India
The Namaste India Festival returns to the event square at Yoyogi Park. There will be a large number of different food and drink stalls, musical performances, lectures, and other displays. There are scheduled performances throughout the day on both Saturday and Sunday, with around 200,000 visitors expected.
September Grand Sumo Tournament
Held every September, this is the penultimate of Japan’s six annual Sumo Tournaments, known as honbasho. With sumo rankings released a few weeks before, it’s a chance to see the traditional sport up close and personal.
Roppongi Matsuri
The gods enshrined at Tenso Shrine — located between Tokyo Midtown and the National Art Center — go for a spin around the neighborhood in their fancy (little) portable shrines on the Sunday starting at 12:30 p.m.
Fukuro Festival (Mikoshi)
The Fukuro Festival began in 1968 as a promotional event for four local shopping districts on the west side of Ikebukuro Station. The festival includes an opening ceremony as well as mikoshi (portable shoulder-borne shrines) parades, taiko drum shows, lion dances, hayashi festival music, yosakoi dancing, and an Okinawan Eisa Dance show.
Shinagawa Shukuba Festival
The Shinagawa Shukuba Festival, also known as the Shinagawa Shukuba Matsuri, is a festival celebrating Shinagawa’s history as the first rest stop on the Tokaidō Road heading south.
Roppongi Art Night
Roppongi Art Night (modeled after the famous “Nuit Blanche” festivals worldwide) has become one of the city’s biggest art events. The event features amazing installation art, live art, and performances centered on the three points of the Roppongi Art Triangle — Tokyo Midtown, The National Art Center Tokyo, and Roppongi Hills.
Tokyo Game Show
The Tokyo Game Show remains one of the top gaming shows in the world. While the first two days of the event are industry, influencers, and press only, days three and four are open to the sweaty masses.
| Advance sales: ¥3,000 | ||
Tokugawa Hundred-Member Gun Squad Fair
Tokugawa Ieyasu himself founded the Teppo-gumi Hyakunin-tai (Hundred-Member Gun Squad) to defend his shogunate in the capital. The fair is now held every odd year. Men in armor and helmets parade through Hyakuninchō, test fire matchlock guns, and give public demonstrations of battlefield exercises.
Ōkunitama Shrine Autumn Festival/Chestnut Festival
This festival has a lot of history, going back all the way to 1738. Because the chestnut season overlapped with the kagura dance rituals, the festival became known as the “Chestnut Festival.”
Blue Note Jazz Festival
This year’s Blue Note Jazz Festival will be held at Ariake Arena, featuring jazz, funk, and soul artists like Norah Jones, Ne-Yo, Incognito, and more.
Hisaya Kumano Solo Exhibition: Frozen Strings
Frozen Strings is a special solo exhibition by artist and spatial designer Hisaya Kumano. Blending floral art, music, video, and light, this three-day exhibition invites you into a dream-like space, revealing the mysteries of nature and human imagination.
The Pirates of Tokyo Bay Bilingual Improv Comedy
The Pirates of Tokyo Bay is a monthly English and Japanese improv comedy show performed at What The Dickens! in Ebisu. The unscripted and interactive shows, performed in both English and Japanese, feature a mix of skits, games, and audience participation from a team of dedicated improv comedy nerds.
| Advance sales: ¥2,500 | At the door: ¥2,500 | |
Japan-Korea Exchange Festival
The Nikkan Kōryu Matsuri (Japan-Korea Exchange Festival) is an event held simultaneously in both Tokyo and Seoul with the aim of strengthening ties between Japan and South Korea.
Red Spider Lily Festival
As the spider lilies flower, the crowds once again gather. The Red Spider Lily or Manjushage (曼珠沙華), already a pretty little plant on its own, makes for an Instagram-winning blanket of color in the Kinchakuda fields in Hidaka, Saitama.
| At the door: ¥500 | ||
Moon Art Night Shimokitazawa
Once again, the whole of Shimokitazawa is going moon-mad. The hip neighborhood will celebrate the start of autumn and the Japanese tradition of tsukimi (moon viewing) by holding an art festival on its streets.
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