Things to do in Tokyo today

Visionary Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) transformed the landscape of modern architecture through his organic forms, bold innovations and deep reverence for nature. His iconic works, including Park Güell, Casa Batlló, Casa Milà and, above all, the Sagrada Família, remain enduring testaments to his genius, blending mathematics and faith into living architecture. Today, seven of his masterpieces are recognised as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Commemorating the 100th anniversary of Gaudí’s passing and the completion of the Sagrada Família’s main tower, ‘Naked meets Gaudí’ at Warehouse Terrada offers a groundbreaking fusion of art, technology and scholarship. In official collaboration with the Gaudí Foundation, the immersive exhibition unveils Gaudí’s personal notebooks, letters, architectural tools and original blueprints, many on display for the first time worldwide. Through cutting-edge projection, participatory installations and interactive experiences, visitors are invited to step inside Gaudí’s creative universe; to touch, feel and co-create the harmony of nature and architecture that defined his vision. Bridging a century of imagination, the exhibition celebrates Gaudí as an architect of stone, but also as a designer of dreams, whose spirit continues to shape the future of art and design.

Don’t feel discouraged if you haven’t been sticking to your 2026 resolutions. According to the lunar calendar, we still have a few more days before we officially enter the 2026 new year, which begins on February 18. If you want to celebrate the year of the fire horse in Japan, there are few better places to visit than Yokohama Chinatown, which has observed Chinese Spring Festival traditions since 1986. Starting from 2022, the festivities are held concurrently with dazzling displays of colourful lanterns based on Chinese zodiac animals from January 20, installed in 60-odd locations throughout Yokohama, including Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse, Bashamichi Station and Yamashitacho Park in the heart of Chinatown. This year’s festivities kick off with a Lunar New Year midnight countdown at Yamashitacho Park on February 16. Celebrations continue through February 17, with live performances, food pop-ups and glowing lantern displays. Here are the highlights to look forward to. February 17 (Tue), 4pm: a key ritual of Lunar New Year celebrations, the afternoon is marked by a neighbourhood-wide Cai Qing lion dance, in which the lion plucks and 'eats' hanging greens to symbolically claim prosperity, overcome obstacles and bless the neighbourhood with good fortune. February 21 (Sat), 4.30pm: the Shukumai-yuko procession will begin at Yamashitacho Park, where a dazzling ensemble of lion dancers, rickshaws carrying people dressed as famous Chinese emperors, and other performing artists...

Brace yourselves (and your wallets) for a capsule toy extravaganza this February at the Roppongi Museum. Ever since the wildly popular Gacha Gacha Exhibition in Marunouchi last July, Tokyo’s gacha geeks have been hoping for a similar exhibition. The wait is finally over, with this even larger show happening for almost a full month from February 6 to March 2. Expect to see contributions from a total of 13 capsule toy manufacturers, including two new participants, Ikimon and Benelic. To mark Gacha Gacha Day (the day when the first gacha machine was imported to Japan from the United States), the coveted Gacha Gacha Exhibition Grand Prize will be awarded on February 17, with the winner decided by visitor votes. Cast your ballot for your favourite capsule toy and help make gacha history. Tickets can be purchased in advance via Asoview. Weekend, holiday and opening day tickets include a designated entry time to help manage visitor flow.

A popular place for plum blossom fans since olden times, Yushima Tenmangu shrine still draws crowds every year. The plum blossoms might get less hype than the cherry blossoms that follow, but they still make for some gorgeous late-winter scenery. This year marks the 69th run of the Yushima Tenjin Ume Matsuri. The annual festival is one of Tokyo's most popular late-winter events, and it takes place for a month from February 8 until March 8. The shinto shrine is home to about 300 plum trees, and most of them are around 80 years old. Approximately 80 percent of them produce white plum blossoms.  On weekends and holidays – February 8, 11, 14-15, 21-23, 28, March 1, 7 – you can look forward to events such as live Kagura (ceremonial silent theatre),  Nihon-buyo (traditional Japanese dance) and taiko drumming as well as flamenco and belly dancing performances. You’ll also find several stalls selling souvenirs from Bunkyo ward as well as local products from Ibaraki (February 8), Ishikawa (February 8, 14), Aomori (Feb 14-15), Kumamoto (February 21-23), Hyogo/Shimane (February 28-March 1) and Fukushima (March 7-8).

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government No 1 Building in Shinjuku serves as the backdrop for a jaw-dropping and record-breaking projection mapping show. Covering an area of a whopping 13,905sqm, the after-dark spectacle has been certified by Guinness World Records as the largest permanent display of its kind in the world. The nightly showcase features a range of visual wonders created by a mix of local and international artists. Some shows are inspired by Tokyo’s rich history, while others draw on themes like the lunar cycle.  Currently, on weeknights, you can catch striking visuals synchronised to ‘800’ and 'Zankyosanka' by hit Japanese pop singer and lyricist Aimer as well as ‘Pac-Man eats Tokyo’, ‘Lunar Cycle’, ‘Synergy’, ‘Tokyo Resonance’ and ‘Evolution’. On weekends, you can look forward to the aforementioned ‘Zankyosanka (Aimer)’, as well as ‘Godzilla: Attack on Tokyo’ and ‘TYO337’, a display featuring motifs of traditional Japanese performing arts such as Kabuki paired with electronic beats.  From March 20, Pokémon Trading Card Game ‘Tokyo Luminous Night’, a brand-new projection-mapping show featuring Pokémon cards on a massive scale, will begin on weekends and holidays from 6.30pm, 7.30pm and 9pm. Be sure to check the event website for more details. Shows take place every night at fifteen-minute intervals from 6pm (Mar from 6.30pm, 7pm from Apr, 7.30pm from May to Aug) to 9.45pm. For more details and to check the full programme of daily projection mapping shows, visit here.

Emerging in the wake of the Margaret Thatcher era, the Young British Artists (YBAs) and their contemporaries embraced shock, irreverence and entrepreneurial flair. While the YBA label (applied after the landmark 1988 ‘Freeze’ exhibition organised by Damien Hirst) was often contested, it came to define a generation that reimagined what art could be. Painting, sculpture, photography, video and installation all became tools for probing themes of identity, consumer culture and shifting social structures.  The National Art Center’s ‘YBA & Beyond: British Art in the 90s from the Tate Collection’ is the first exhibition in Japan devoted exclusively to British art of the 1990s. Featuring around 100 works by some 60 artists, the show captures a turbulent and transformative period in British culture, when politics, society and art collided to spark a wave of radical experimentation. Highlights include works by Hirst, Tracey Emin, Steve McQueen, Lubaina Himid, Wolfgang Tillmans and Julian Opie, alongside others who reshaped contemporary art on a global stage. More than a retrospective, ‘YBA & Beyond’ offers a vivid portrait of 1990s Britain, an era when art intersected with music, fashion and subculture, leaving a legacy that continues to resonate today.

Andrius Arutiunian (born 1991) is an Armenian-Lithuanian artist and composer whose practice unfolds at the intersection of sound, ritual and speculative cosmology. Working across installation, performance and moving image, he approaches listening as a hybrid and political act, treating music as an architecture of distorted time. His work, shown at major international exhibitions including the Venice, Shanghai, Gwangju and Lyon Biennales, explores how belief systems, vernacular knowledge and collective rituals shape alternative models of social and temporal order. ‘Obol’, Arutiunian’s first solo exhibition in Japan, takes place from February 20 to May 31 at Le Forum. Presented by Ginza Maison Hermès and curated by Tomoya Iwata, the exhibition imagines a futuristic vision of the underworld, a speculative space where myth, sound and ceremony converge. Drawing on ancient cosmologies, esoteric texts and fragments of ritual, ‘Obol’ is conceived as a ‘club for the dead’, where time becomes viscous and hypnotic, and where the boundaries between past, present and future dissolve. Central to the exhibition is a new body of work using bitumen, a petroleum-derived material once imbued with sacred meaning but now relegated to utilitarian use. As both material and metaphor, it anchors a meditation on Charon, the ferryman of the underworld, evoked through silver obols, serpentine forms and generative mythological imagery. Layered soundscapes weave through the space, binding playfulness...

Celebrating three decades of Ghost in the Shell, one of Japan’s most influential sci-fi franchises, this large-scale exhibition takes over Tokyo Node at Toranomon Hills from January 30 to April 5. The ambitious showcase traces the evolution of the series from Masamune Shirow’s ground-breaking 1989 manga to its acclaimed anime adaptations and, with a new 2026 series from Science Saru on the horizon, into the future. Organised with the full cooperation of Production IG, the studio behind the franchise’s animation, the exhibition brings together works by directors Mamoru Oshii, Kenji Kamiyama, Kazuya Kise and Shinji Aramaki, offering visitors an unprecedented deep dive into the cyberpunk universe that redefined anime. Over 600 production materials are on display, including original drawings, storyboards and concept art. You can also look forward to immersive installations and interactive exhibits that explore key philosophical themes from the series such as identity, consciousness and the boundaries between human and machine. Further highlights include new contributions by international artists, exclusive interview footage, and the ‘DIG-ru’ installation, which invites visitors to ‘digitally excavate’ the world of Ghost in the Shell. And of course, you get to shop for plenty of only-here merchandise at the gift shop.

Adapted from Tatsuki Fujimoto’s celebrated manga, the anime film Look Back (2024) is a quiet yet piercing meditation on creativity, loss and the fragile resolve that drives manga artists to keep drawing despite uncertainty. Directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama, one of contemporary Japan’s most respected animators, the cinematic adaptation stood out for its emotional restraint and the expressive power of its hand-drawn lines. The Fukushima-born Oshiyama has built a multifaceted career as an animator, director and designer, contributing to landmark works such as Den-noh Coil before setting up his own company, Studio Durian. For Look Back, he assumed nearly every key creative role, shaping a deeply personal tribute to drawing itself. This exhibition at Azabudai Hills Gallery offers an unprecedented look behind the scenes of the film. Instead of presenting Look Back as a completed work, the display traces its making through original key animations, character sheets, memos and an immersive ‘tunnel’ of drawings suspended from the ceiling that foreground the physical labour of animation. Carefully recreated spaces from the story invite visitors to step inside the emotional geography of the work. Other highlights include the first public presentation in Japan of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s original sketches for Look Back, newly created manga drawn by Oshiyama for the exhibition, and a special dialogue display with Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki. Together, these elements form a moving...

This spring, Kiba Park in Koto is taking part in the Flower and Light Movement, which sees city-run parks transformed with brand-new flowerbeds and limited-run, floral-inspired illuminations. During the festival, you can see fresh spring blooms planted in a sakura-shaped flowerbed, a 3.5-metre-tall light sculpture inspired by old lighthouses that symbolise the area’s historic waterways, and more. The blooms will light up from 5.30pm to 8pm (8.30pm on weekends) daily. Make the most of your visit by stopping by the adjacent Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo as well.