🏮 Kitsune No Yomatsuri

狐の夜祭り

Kashiwazaki, Niigata (Tochihara Shrine) · Every year on 29 October

Bon odoriTraditional performing arts

45 days to go
Rooms around Kashiwazaki, Niigata fill up while the festival is on.

In the Takayanagicho Torigoehara settlement of Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, the Kitsune no Yomatsuri (Fox Night Festival) is held around Sports Day in October. Based on the local legend of Togoro the Fox, a procession carrying lanterns walks about 3.9 km from Torihara Shrine to the Prefectural Children's Nature Kingdom. Participants wear white robes and fox masks, sounding flutes as they proceed along the pitch-dark mountain path. The dim lantern light creates a mysterious atmosphere. In the traditional large aburaage making, local people fry an aburaage about the size of a tatami mat, carry it along with the procession, and serve it to onlookers. At the end of the festival, the kitsune dance devised by the organizing committee Yumeoibito is performed, coloring the nighttime settlement.

Getting there

No details are given for access by bus or car from the nearest station. The venue is the roughly 3.9 km route from the Takayanagicho Torigoehara settlement in Kashiwazaki to the Prefectural Children's Nature Kingdom (Takao).