Things to do in Tokyo today

Neuro-tech startup VIE is bringing its masterful soundscape engineering to Tokyo National Museum for the first time with Zen Night Tokyo, an event taking place in the gardens behind the main museum building from October 14 to December 6. Held to coincide with the upcoming ‘Daitoku-ji: Japan’s Unrivalled Zen Monastery – 700th Anniversary Special Exhibition', the Japanese garden is hosting this special after-hours autumn leaves illumination spectacle designed to soothe the senses and let visitors admire the natural beauty of the grounds, which are ordinarily closed to the public. Themed around the Buddhist concepts of rebirth and cyclical existence, this immersive journey guides visitors through different areas along the mirror-like Suigetsu pond, including an open-air teahouse zone where you can enter different realms through soundscapes tuned to distinct wavelengths, each designed to evoke a unique emotional experience. Continuing along the pond, visitors discover a path of spider lilies, flowers often associated with the arrival of autumn and the honouring of ancestral spirits. Aptly named Hyakki Yado (Night Path of One Hundred Demons), the path is lined with some 3,000 hauntingly beautiful spider lilies illuminated against the night. Meanwhile, at the Kujokan teahouse, you can drink matcha while admiring the breathtaking illuminated rock garden. The tea experience is paired with a high-tech ‘Brainwave Zen’ meditation experience, which involves measuring brainwaves with...

Enjoy the cooler autumn evenings at the Tokyo Night Market near Shibuya Crossing. Here you can expect a variety of street food alongside live performances and art exhibitions, with DJs on deck to set the mood all day till 10pm. Held at Yoyogi Park’s main events square and the adjacent Keyaki Namiki Avenue for five consecutive nights from October 21 to October 25, the triannual event is expected to be livelier than ever with over 50 food stalls. As for music, you can look forward to an impressive lineup of mainstream and indie acts. While details regarding October's stage performance are still under wraps, previous iterations have featured pop band Friends, piano and cajón duo Pia-no-jac, chorus idol group Machida Girls' Choir and improvisational percussion group La Señas, among many others. Keep tabs on the event's Instagram for the latest updates. Tokyo Night Market runs from 4pm to 10pm Wednesday through Friday, and from 2pm to 10pm on weekends.

With its 300 to 700 vendors, this is by far Tokyo’s biggest flea market and it takes place nearly every weekend in the parking lot of Oi Racecourse, also known as Tokyo City Keiba. With an extensive selection of goods, it’s not difficult to spend half a day here – and given the tempting prices, you definitely won’t leave empty-handed. Expect to find daily necessities, rare collector’s items, clothing, accessories, handmade goods, home décor, toys and even a small selection of antiques. And since shopping can be quite tiring, hungry bargain hunters can restore their energy levels by munching on light meals and snacks from food trucks on-site. Do note that the market will be cancelled in the case of rain. Check the event Instagram for the latest updates.

One of Japan’s largest urban photography festivals has returned to Tokyo. Now in its eighth year, it runs from October 3 to October 26 across multiple venues in Yaesu, Nihonbashi, Kyobashi and Ginza. This year’s edition features prints by South African visual activist and 2026 Hasselblad International Photography Award winner Zanele Muholi at the brand-new Tofrom Yaesu Tower, as well as photographs by internationally acclaimed contemporary photographer Lucas Foglia documenting the great migration of butterflies from Africa to Europe, displayed as public artworks at Tokyo Midtown Yaesu. Meanwhile, be sure to visit Sarah van Rij's ‘L'épaisseur du temps’, exhibited across the Tokyo Tatemono Nihonbashi Building and Sanei Building. Photographs taken while walking through Paris, New York and Seoul will be installed on the exterior wall of the Sanei Building and within the Tokyo Tatemono Nihonbashi Building (accessible on weekdays and hols only), transforming the neighbourhood itself into a new stage for the work. If you’re looking to take a quick break in the area, stop by Gallery & Bakery Tokyo 8min inside the Toda Building. The City Bakery is hosting ‘Trace and Vision: Nozomi Suzuki & Sayaka Uehara with the Higashikawa Award Collection’, a two-person exhibition exploring memory embedded in the landscape. Through photography, the artists reconnect past and present, place and lived experience. Some exhibits are closed on weekends. More information can be found on the official...

Whatever time of year, Koenji can comfortably bask in the knowledge that it's one of Tokyo's coolest neighbourhoods (or the world, for that matter). For the uninitiated, there are few better times to visit than during this annual autumn festival, in which the area's streets are flooded with performers, while local shops lure visitors with digital 'stamp rallies' (notch up stamps on your card for a chance to take part in a raffle), and gig venues throw free concerts. One of the highlights is the Tokyo Hyakki Yako Monster Parade, a Halloween-season spectacle where costumed yokai (supernatural monsters) parade through the South-side Koenji Look Shopping Street, bringing Japan’s folklore creatures to life. The festivities also include outdoor flea markets (Oct 25 only), craft marches, live stage performances and even pro wrestling matches outside Koenji Station’s North Exit. Matches are scheduled for Saturday October 24 at 4pm, and Sunday October 25 at 1.50pm and 4pm. To celebrate the 20th birthday of Suginami’s official mascot Namisuke, the district’s beloved mascot wrestling matches are returning after a seven-year hiatus. Starting Saturday at 11.50am, watch Namisuke take on rivals including Psyche Delhi-san, an anthropomorphised magic mushroom representing Koenji Shopping Street Association, and Nishizo, Nishi-Ogikubo’s much-loved pink elephant mascot. Check the festival website for more details.

The force behind smash-hit titles including Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen, Japanese animation studio Mappa is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. To mark the milestone, the company is hosting its largest-ever exhibition from September 16, bringing together work from 23 titles at the newly opened Yurakucho Museum. The exhibition features original drawings, large-scale sets and video projections that immerse visitors in the worlds of Mappa shows and films such as Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, Attack on Titan: Final Season, Jujutsu Kaisen and more. At the Chainsaw Man exhibition area, you can feast your eyes on exclusive production materials, including drawings that follow the story of The Movie: Reze Arc, from Denji and Reze’s first encounter and the explosive battle between Chainsaw Man and Bomb to the conclusion of their story. Don’t miss the illuminated life-size figure of Bomb, which is being unveiled for the first time. The Attack on Titan: Final Season zone features original drawings for key scenes, displays explaining the production process, and original hand-drawn watercolour artwork of the symbolic hill from the story’s ending. The Jujutsu Kaisen area revisits some of the series’ most iconic battle scenes and memorable moments. Production materials are exhibited in the first half of this zone, including original drawings from Season 1 and Jujutsu Kaisen 0, while the second half features materials from Season 2, Hidden Inventory / Premature Death,...

Tokyo itself becomes both subject and stage in Tokyo Atlas, a new international art exhibition unfolding across the capital’s waterfront from October 10 to December 20. The ambitious project transforms parks, public spaces and urban infrastructure into an open-air cultural landscape, inviting attendees to rediscover the city through encounters with site-specific works. Drawing on the dual meaning of its title – both the mythological Atlas and an atlas of maps – the exhibition encourages audiences to navigate Tokyo as a living constellation of artistic discoveries. Anchored by major venues including Daiba Park and the Aomi Minami Port Park area, the exhibition explores how history, geography and global exchange continue to shape the metropolis. Daiba Park, originally constructed as an Edo-period (1603–1868) coastal battery, provides a striking backdrop where contemporary art meets one of the symbolic gateways to Japan’s modernisation. Nearby, the working waterfront of Aomi becomes a setting for projects that reflect on community, ecology and coexistence. French artist Abraham Poincheval presents La Bouteille, a performance in which he inhabits a giant bottle, while the collaborative initiative Goat’s Eyes transforms the site into a participatory environment examining sustainable creativity and new forms of collective living. Elsewhere, the atrium of the Telecom Center Building hosts a landmark installation by the recently passed Yayoi Kusama, bringing together her...

The Kanda Furuhon (Used Book) Festival in Tokyo's booktown Jimbocho has been held annually since 1960, traditionally timed to coincide with the Culture Day national holiday on November 3. In addition to offering a vast array of used books, the festival also encompasses a number of other book-related offers and events, including an outdoor book market, the sale of a number of specially selected rare books, and a charity used-book auction. Though the majority of the tomes on display are in Japanese, it's still easy to lose a few hours in idle browsing.

Sound, visual art and site-specific elements blend together in innovative and challenging ways at Ambient Kyoto, a multisensory, immersive exhibition that now makes its first foray into Tokyo, landing at Azabudai Hills Gallery. The display centres on the installation ‘async – immersion’, envisioned by the much-missed Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani of Dumb Type and first presented in Kyoto in 2023. Inspired by Sakamoto’s 2017 album async, ‘async – immersion’ features visuals by Takatani and spatial audio design by sound engineer ZAK, whose fingerprints are all over many of Sakamoto’s late-career projects. At Azabudai Hills, the work has been reconstructed exclusively for the venue, with the setup including a 26-metre-wide screen for displaying the video elements of the installation. True to the title of the work, the aural and visual components are aligned but not fully synchronised; their constantly shifting relationship rewards attentive viewing and encourages visitors to approach the work on their own terms.

2026 is shaping up to be a monumental year for jazz-fusion icon Masayoshi Takanaka, who has captured the hearts of young millennial and Gen Z fans around the globe with sold-out shows on his world tour. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of his solo debut, and what better way to celebrate than with a Super Takanaka pop-up taking over Harajuku’s Takeshita Street? Running from October 21 to November 1 at the Universal Music Store Harajuku, the curated exhibition features Takanaka’s iconic guitars, spectacular large-format photographs from his 2026 World Tour, and a host of displays showcasing the artistry, imagination and unmistakable style that have defined his illustrious career. Be sure to snap a photo with a replica of his iconic red surfboard guitar at one of the photo spots, then soak up his feel-good vibes with screenings of concert footage. The line-up of original merch includes album cover T-shirts and hoodies (from ¥6,000). Since it's expected to be packed, reservations (free) are essential.