The Asagaya Tanabata Festival takes place every year in the Asagaya Pearl Center (a shopping street) and is filled with dangling decorations and children’s cartoon characters.
What happens?
The festival in Asagaya was set up in 1954 by merchants seeking to increase their customers. The festival is famous for its paper-mâché recreations of cartoon characters as well as traditional Japanese games and a great diversity of foods lining the street.
What is Tanabata?
Tanabata is a tradition in East Asian culture, taking names such as Qixi Festival in China and Chilseok in South Korea. It celebrates the meeting of two deities, Orihime and Hikoboshi, who according to legend are separated by the Milky Way.
How to get there
The best direction is to start at Asagaya Station and walk through the shopping street up to Minami-Asagaya Station, but you can also do it the other way.
- 291 m from Asagaya Station Chūō Line (Rapid) (JC8)Chūō-Sōbu Line (JB35)
- 336 m from Minami-asagaya Station Marunouchi Line (M2)
