Inside the Tado Festival at Mie’s Tado Taisha — the 700-year-old Ageuma Shinji horse-jumping rite, the shrine’s horse-deity mythology, the ongoing animal-welfare debate, and the shrine’s year-round programme.
Festivals
Japanese festivals (matsuri) by season and region.
A year-round guide to Nagano prefecture — Takato Castle cherries in April, Iiyama nanohana in May, Kamikochi in summer, autumn colours at Kamikochi and Tateyama-Kurobe, snow monkeys at Jigokudani in winter, and every major festival in between.
Shizuoka’s summer festival calendar — Mt Fuji opening, Atami fireworks, the Shimizu Minato Matsuri with its 20,000-dancer Kappore parade and 10,000-shell fireworks, Fukuroi Enshu Hanabi, Izu Obon, and more.
Shizuoka’s spring festival calendar runs from early-February Kawazu cherries on Izu through the Tokugawa pageantry of Shizuoka Matsuri and finishes at Shimoda’s May Black Ship Festival. A full-season guide.