The Kanda Festival


Right off the bat, I’d like to ask you a question. This is one question that I don’t think you need to ask a Japanese person, but I’ll ask it to you non-Japanese people. Do you like festivals? In Japanese we say 祭 (matsuri) meaning ‘festival’. If you were to ask Japanese people whether or not they enjoy matsuri or not, I imagine that most of them would say that they do, they may even answer that they love them. It’s almost the summer and there are number of different events, foods and so on that can be used to best describe the Japanese summer. Among what can describe the Japanese summer is the 夏祭り (natsu matsuri) or ‘summer festivals’ that take place across the country. There’s nothing greater than getting to drink a bear while watching a traditional Japanese dance or any other type of traditional Japanese performance! 🍺

It’s not quite the summer yet, but there was one festival that was held last weekend. I didn’t know it until recently, but this festival is one of the most noted festivals in Tokyo. The festival held was the 神田祭 (kanda matsuri) or the Kanda festival. This festival centers around the 神田明神 (kanda myojin) Kanda Myojin shrine and takes place over the course of 2 days. This shrine is famous for having a large number of Japanese cartoon and Japanese comic book fans gather there. Seeing as 秋葉原 (Akihabara), which is an area known for having many stores selling Japanese cartoon and comic book related good in it, is close by, that’s really not much of a surprise. Recently, I just happened to translate an article about this matsuri for MATCHA, a company in which I have a part-time job translating Japanese articles into English for. For those that would like more information about the Kanda matsuri and or would like to read my translation, please click here. Since it rained on the first day in which this matsuri was held, I visited it on the 2nd day (Sunday).


There were so many people who had come to view this festival that I could barely move! 





What these people are carrying on their shoulders is what's known in Japanese as a お神輿 (omikoshi), which is a type of portable shrine. The one pictured below is one designed for kids. 😆


I'm not entirely sure what the role of these elderly people were.


These people in green seemed to be the one's playing the instruments, helping to make the festival even more lively!





There were omikoshi all over the place, even in Akihabara!


If anyone has any recommendations for must see festivals this year, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know.

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