15 best things to do in Osaka in April 2026

Osaka Expo may be over, but its legacy lives on. As two of Myaku-Myaku’s most popular statues embark on a prefecture-wide tour, another beloved Expo highlight is also making a comeback. The grand fireworks that enthralled visitors during the six-month event will be restaged to rekindle the awe and wonder we felt at the Expo last year.

Japan Fireworks Expo 2026 builds on the spectacular showcases that lit up Expo 2025’s Yumeshima sky, with organisers promising a display of equal, if not greater, scale. The 60-minute show will launch size-10 shells, which are capable of producing panoramic fireworks spanning approximately 300 metres.

The event will be held at Nishikinohama in Kaizuka City, Osaka prefecture. On the day, the venue will come alive with food stalls, barbecue areas and a host of activities. So arrive early to enjoy the festivities, and don’t miss the sunset at Nishikinohama, which is ranked among Japan’s top 100 sunsets.

Japan Fireworks Expo 2026 is a ticketed event with paid seating...

Come mid-April, the short but beautiful season of pastel pink cherry blossoms gives way to the brilliant blue of nemophila, also known as baby blue eyes. One of the best places to catch this vivid ground cover is Osaka Maishima Seaside Park.

This annual event, held near Yumeshima, was canceled last year due to the Osaka Expo, but returns this year in full splendour. Expect to see 44,000 square metres of nemophila blooming in unison, creating a breathtaking panorama where the sea of blue flowers seems to merge with the sky and the sea beyond.

Widely regarded as one of Osaka’s most photogenic spring festivals, the event naturally leans into its visual appeal. Photo spots are scattered throughout the grounds, including areas where nemophila is paired with seasonal favourites like cherry blossoms and tulips. Make sure you submit your best shots to the festival’s photo competition for a chance to win prizes of up to ¥100,000.

There’s plenty here for families, too, with a kids’ playground and a lineup of 12 food trucks offering everything from light bites and desserts to heartier options such as beef bowls...

Hanshin Department Store in Umeda is hosting a six-day gyoza and craft beer festival at its dedicated food event space on the first floor. Organised in collaboration with Craft Gyoza Fes, a well-regarded dumpling festival that tours cities nationwide, the event brings together a wide variety of gyoza from some of Japan’s top restaurants.

Here you can sample everything from classic pork-filled dumplings to distinctive regional styles and inventive modern creations. Adding to the appeal is a rotating lineup of over 30 Japanese craft beers, chosen speficially to pair with gyoza.

Highlights include the famous bite-sized Hakata gyoza from Hachisuke in Fukuoka, and the grilled ryosho gyoza from Gyoza-dokoro Sukemasa in Kyoto, which specialises in Japanese-style, ginger-forward dumplings made with Kyoto ingredients such as bonito broth and local miso. Also not to be missed is the garlic-free shiso and grated daikon ponzu dumplings from Hachiman Gyoza in Utsunomiya, a city in Tochigi prefecture that’s often hailed as Japan’s gyoza capital...

If you think you may be in need of some grill power to get you through Golden Week, the Meat Osaka 2026 has you covered. For eight days from April 29, Nagai Park becomes the city’s premier destination for meat lovers, with free admission and a line-up of vendors from across Japan.

After a two-year absence from Osaka, the event returns with an expanded line-up, offering a plethora of top-tier meat dishes from butchers, yakiniku specialists and innovative chefs who’ve developed exclusive menus for the festival. Expect premium wagyu sushi, rare-cut katsu (deep-fried cutlets), Korean-style grilled beef tongue, hearty menchi katsu (deep-fried ground meat patties) and more, served up by vendors from across Japan.

Confirmed participants include World Diner (Hokkaido black wagyu sushi and roast beef with truffle sauce), Tamagawa Butcher Shop (rare beef katsu and secret-blend menchi katsu), Korean BBQ specialist 4si (two styles of grilled tongue), and Ishigaki Island Kitauchi Ranch (premium cuts from its own cattle).

Admission is free and the event is cashless. Food and drinks can be purchased using meal tickets (¥200 or ¥800 per ticket), credit cards as well as QR code and electronic payment methods...

Spring is the perfect season for picnics, and Umekita is just the place to enjoy them. For about two weeks, this lively area next to Osaka Station transforms its open lawns and public spaces into an outdoor gallery, showcasing a series of large-scale installations by local artists.

Over at Grand Green Osaka and Grand Front Osaka – the two main anchors of the Umekita area – large curtain-like installations titled ‘Super Open’ act as doorways, welcoming visitors to explore the grounds and hang out with art.

‘Unfolding the Giant Furoshiki’ is another interesting piece. It will move between two sites: Grand Front Osaka’s Umekita Plaza on the weekend of April 4–5, and Grand Green Osaka’s Lawn Plaza on subsequent weekends, April 11–12 and April 18–19.

Here, a giant furoshiki, measuring up to 50m × 30m and made from smaller pieces of fabric sewn together, will be laid on the ground from 9am to 6pm to form a massive communal space. Everyone is welcome to sit, relax and spend time on it.

Other highlights include a faceless human-like figure titled ‘Anonymous’ (10am–7pm) at Grand Green Osaka’s Lawn Plaza, which encourages passersby to pause and perhaps project their emotions onto the sculpture, as well as ‘Spiral Lumina’, a rope installation at Grand Green Osaka’s Gate Lantern, featuring a spiral form reminiscent of a DNA helix.

Umekita is shaping up to be one of Osaka’s most vibrant districts this spring. Aside from the Art Picnic, the area will also host a series of concurrent events, including a cherry blossom illumination...

Yajuro Takashima (1890–1975) stands as one of modern Japan’s most enigmatic artistic figures. Born in Fukuoka prefecture, the self-taught oil painter forged a career entirely outside the established art world. As a result, his work remained virtually unknown during his lifetime, only gaining recognition in 1986, more than a decade after his death, when his photorealistic technique and contemplative subject matter finally captured public attention.

Known for his meticulous, almost obsessive approach, Takashima developed a unique style that brought an uncanny realism to his subjects. His most celebrated works – flickering candles casting warm light in darkness and luminous moons suspended in night skies – reveal an artist deeply concerned with illumination, both literal and spiritual. These iconic motifs, rendered with painstaking attention to light and shadow, earned him recognition as a painter of rare technical mastery and meditative depth.

From spring through early summer, the Nakanoshima Museum of Art presents the most comprehensive retrospective of Takashima’s art ever held in Osaka. Marking the 50th anniversary of his passing, the exhibition brings together over 160 works, including numerous pieces shown publicly for the first time. It offers an unprecedented opportunity to examine the full breadth of Takashima’s seven-decade career, from his early self-portraits and still lifes to the transcendent candle and moonlight paintings that would come to define his legacy...

Sitting at the intersection of history, science, magic and horror, mummies are an enduring source of fascination for many – and at the heart of this exhibition featuring a selection of masterpieces from the prestigious Egyptian collection of the Brooklyn Museum. Following successful runs in Tokyo and Hiroshima, the show will be on at the Abeno Harukas Art Museum from March 20 to June 14.

The 150 artefacts on display include sculptures, coffins, jewellery, pottery, earthenware, papyrus scrolls and, of course, human and animal mummies. You can dive right into the lore with immersive video and audio presentations about the pyramids and ancient Egyptian spells, learn about the daily lives of people in the age of the pharaohs, and study up on their beliefs about the afterlife.

One of Japan’s most distinguished contemporary artists, Tokyo‑born Natsuyuki Nakanishi (1935–2016) left behind an impressive body of work that defies neat categorisation. His paintings often question the purpose and existence of a painting, making them difficult to classify as strictly figurative or abstract.

Classically trained in painting, Nakanishi is also closely associated with the avant-garde art scene of 1960s Japan. During that period, as a founding member of the boundary-pushing art collective Hi-Red Center, his practice expanded beyond traditional painting to include performance art. Later, after an inspiring collaboration with butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata, he returned to painting with a more evolved conceptual approach.

Nakanishi’s iconic works are often executed with unusually long brushes and painted from a distance, frequently employing vibrant colours such as orange, yellow-green and purple. This exhibition at the National Museum of Art, Osaka marks his first retrospective since his death ten years ago...

Jeff Koons occupies a singular position in contemporary art. Known for his polished surfaces, bold iconography and unapologetic embrace of popular imagery, the American artist has continually blurred the boundaries between high culture and mass consumption. By elevating everyday objects – vacuum cleaners, basketballs, cartoon figures – into the realm of fine art, Koons interrogates value, desire and collective memory. Held in major museum collections worldwide, his works function as both mirrors and provocations, reflecting the aspirations and contradictions of contemporary society.

This exhibition at Espace Louis Vuitton Osaka is organised as part of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s ‘Hors-les-murs’ program and brings together seven significant sculptures and paintings drawn from the foundation’s collection, tracing the evolution of Koons’s practice from the 1980s onward.

Early works such as 'Three Ball 50/50 Tank' exemplify his strategy of reframing industrial commodities as icons of the American Dream. The celebrated 1988 'Banality' series, including 'Woman in Tub' and 'Wild Boy and Puppy', merges pop imagery and personal memory in technically virtuosic sculptures that challenge conventional taste. In later large-scale paintings, such as those from the 'Hulk Elvis' series, dense layers of visual elements evoke a world saturated with images...

The Expo Vintage Market is Osaka’s biggest vintage and antiques market. Held at Expo ’70 Commemorative Park’s East Square, the three-day market takes on a festival feel, with more than 150 stalls, food and drink, and live music. Weather permitting it takes place twice a year, in spring and autumn. 

The market specialises in antiques, with almost a hundred stalls dedicated to finds with good old-fashioned charm – from swanky Scandinavian furniture, delicate china and glassware to Mexican Zapotec rugs and extensive collections of memorabilia and Americana.

Around 30 of the stalls are for second-hand clothing, but don’t expect the kind of bulk-bought clothes you find in many vintage shops. Instead, the festival is a place for vendors who take pride in personally purchasing the pieces they sell and the price that comes with that. Speaking of money, many of the vendors do accept cards, but to be on the safe side remember to bring cash...