Sendai Tanabata Matsuri
Sendai Tanabata Matsuri is the country's best known celebration of Tanabata, the star festival marking the once-a-year meeting of two lovers separated across the Milky Way. Sendai keeps it on the old lunar reckoning, which places it over three days in early August rather than in July, and the city has held it since the time of Date Masamune in the seventeenth century. What makes it unlike other matsuri is that there is no parade: the spectacle is the decorations. Around three thousand streamers, made of washi paper and bamboo and often several metres long, hang the length of the covered shopping arcades, each one hand-built by a shop or company and judged for craftsmanship. Walking beneath them feels like moving through a paper forest. Every decoration carries seven traditional ornaments, each with its own prayer — for a good harvest, for skill in weaving, for safety. A fireworks display on the eve opens the festival, and stages and food stalls fill the nearby park and civic square.
Event information
| When | Usually held in early August; check the official site for the latest schedule |
|---|---|
| Where | Sendai |
| Access | The decorated arcades — Chuo-dori and Ichibancho — start directly outside the west exit of JR Sendai Station and run for well over a kilometre, so the whole festival is walkable from the station. Sendai is about ninety minutes from Tokyo on the Tohoku Shinkansen, which makes a day trip feasible. |
| Schedule status | Check the official site |
| Official information | Open the official site |
Practical tips
- The arcades are covered, so this is a rare summer festival that works in the rain — a useful backup if the weather turns during a Tohoku trip.
- Go early in the morning to photograph the streamers without crowds; by afternoon the arcades are shoulder to shoulder and the paper is constantly being brushed aside.
- Sendai hotels fill for these dates, but the shinkansen makes it realistic to stay in Tokyo or Fukushima and come for the day.
- Sendai Tanabata falls in the same week as several other major Tohoku festivals, so pairing two or three cities in one trip is common — book reserved shinkansen seats ahead.
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