🏮 Hakone Daimyo Gyoretsu

箱根大名行列

Hakone, Kanagawa (Former Tokaido Road) · Every year on 3 November

Traditional performing arts

50 days to go
Rooms around Hakone, Kanagawa fill up while the festival is on.

The Hakone Daimyo Gyoretsu (feudal lord procession) is held in Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, every year on November 3, Culture Day. About 170 people parade along the old Tokaido highway. It takes place on the old highway that daimyo (feudal lords) actually traveled in the Edo period, and re-creates the lavish sankin kotai (alternate attendance) processions of that time against the backdrop of the Hakone mountains colored with autumn leaves. The procession began in 1935 as the main attraction of a tourism exposition organized by the Hakone Promotion Association (predecessor of the current Hakone Tourist Association). Shichiro Suzuki, an officer of the association, proposed it; Hideshi Hojo and Niriku Suzuki, owner of Kansuairo, handled its execution; and the costumes and performances were arranged with reference to the yakko-furi (attendant dance) of the Odawara domain's daimyo procession preserved at Kanda Shrine in Matsuda. It was a great success at the exposition and afterward became established as an annual event in Hakone. The highlights are the performance of the yakko (attendants) who swing their keyari (feathered lances) while calling out "shita ni shita ni" and carry hasami-bako (box carriers), and the Hakone Nagamochi Uta (Unosuke Uta) sung by the porters carrying the long chests that close the procession. The procession unfolding along the old Tokaido conveys traces of that era and attracts many tourists.