Things to do in Tokyo this week

The Tori no Ichi festival at Hanazono Shrine is one of the biggest in the Kanto region. It’s held on two days on November 7 and 19 with some smaller 'warm-up' festivals taking place the night before the main events.

For the occasion, the grounds are decorated with 950 LED lanterns towering over the shrine buildings. On the grounds, you will find stalls selling decorative kumade bamboo rakes, plus plenty of other vendors offering food and festival knick-knacks.

The event takes place from 12 noon to 12 midnight on both days, and the smaller pre-festivals take place on the day before the main event, from 3pm until 12 midnight.

Find more Tori no Ichi celebrations here.

Taking place at Otori Shrine inside the Okunitama shrine complex, this festival is one of the three most important Tori no Ichi festivals in Tokyo (the other two being Asakusa and Shinjuku's Hanazono). Worshippers and visitors crowd the area in Fuchu throughout the two days, shopping for kumade rakes and praying for good fortune and success for the coming year.

The event takes place from 6.30am to 10pm on November 7 and November 19.

Tori no Ichi is said to have originated at Asakusa's Otori Shrine and the nearby Juzaisan Chokokuji temple, so you can expect a major spectacle here. This is the biggest Tori no Ichi festival in Tokyo with 800 to 900 booths selling kumade, souvenirs and plenty of food.

The event attracts 700,000 visitors every year and gets very crowded in the evening, so go during the day if you have the chance and snack on some old-school kiri-zansho candy.

The festival is held for 24 hours on November 7 and 19, starting with the first taiko drum sound at 12 midnight (the night of November 6 and 18).

'Shibuya Archive Photo Exhibition 2026' showcases photos of the Shibuya area ranging from the early 1900s to the late 2010s. The collection is brought to you by the Commons Archive Collective, an organisation founded in 2021 that puts on exhibitions of its holdings, many of which feature Shibuya in some capacity.

This particular Shibuya-themed exhibition is in its fourth year. While the 2025 show featured 170 photos focusing on specific streets and places of cultural significance around Dogenzaka, Koen-dori, Center-gai and Shibuya Station, this year's edition shifts its focus to the people and activities that bring these streets to life. By layering the voices and oral histories of people who have spent time in Shibuya over streetscapes and photographs, the exhibition reveals aspects of the neighbourhood that cannot be captured through photography alone.

The exhibition takes place at 8/Court on the 8th floor of Shibuya Hikarie 11am-8pm on November 10-22, 11am-6pm on November 23. Entry to the exhibition is free of charge.

There’s nothing better than ice cream – even in the wintertime, and this eight-day festival is all about our favourite sweet treat. The Ice Cream Expo is serving up a large variety of the frozen dessert from all over Japan, curated by the Japan Ice Cream Mania Association and its representative Iceman Fukutome.

While details for the 2026 winter line-up are yet to be announced, expect ice creams from over 10 brands. You’ll also discover Japan’s latest ice cream trends and have the chance to sample new and unique flavours made exclusively for this occasion. Entry starts from ¥500 on weekdays if tickets are purchased online in advance, and ¥800 on weekends (on-site ¥900). With a ticket, you can enter as many times as you want and receive exclusive event merch.

The event takes place daily from 11am to 7.30pm, until 6pm on November 17.

Held every second and fourth Sunday of the month, this antique market gathers around 100 vendors outside Shibuya Garden Tower. You’ll find all sorts of antiques and vintage handicrafts, jewellery, art, home goods, clothing, plants and organic food from all over the world. The market also features a few food and drink stalls, perfect for when you want a breather from all the shopping. 

Note that the market will be cancelled in the case of rain. Check the event Instagram for updates.

The 400m-long Keyakizaka Street next to the Roppongi Hills shopping centre is lighting up with 930,000 sparkling white and blue LEDs until Christmas Day. From the pedestrian bridge near the Roppongi Hills Arena, you'll get a stunning view of the trees covered in shimmering lights, with Tokyo Tower in the background, from 5pm to 11pm daily. 

The 1.2-kilometre-long Marunouchi Naka-dori street, always one of the most popular Tokyo illumination spots, will have around 250 trees lit up with about 775,000 low-energy, champagne-coloured LEDs this year, making for an environmentally friendly and stylish display.

If you’d rather stay cosy while admiring the lights, visit the renovated Marunouchi House, where the seventh-floor terrace will feature festive illuminations for a limited time. The terrace has plenty of seats surrounded by outdoor heaters.

Closer to Christmas, Gyoko-dori between the Imperial Palace and Tokyo Station will have more illuminations between November 27 and December 25, bringing the total to around 810,000 LEDs.

Until January 31, the district surrounding Tokyo Skytree Town and Asakusa is lighting up with ornate takeakari bamboo lanterns created by Chikaken, a company specialising in these unique traditional lanterns. Many of their takeakari bamboo light creations have been featured at some of Japan’s popular illuminations including Hana Akari at Yomiuri Land and select Tokyo hotels.

The Sumida River Walk, a pedestrian bridge connecting Tokyo Mizumachi with Sumida Park on the Asakusa side, is particularly picturesque. Look out for a special installation with Tokyo Skytree as its backdrop, as well as arches of bamboo lanterns stretching across the 160-metre-long bridge.

There’s another installation at the Kitajukken riverside terrace running alongside Tokyo Mizumachi, where you'll find beautifully handcrafted takemari bamboo ornaments lining the 400-metre walkway from Genmori Bridge to Koume Bridge.

Ushijima Shrine in Sumida Park is also lit up daily from 5pm to 10pm with bamboo lights as well as colourful takemari that are beautifully hung in the air.

Showa Kinen Park is the most beautiful in autumn, with the maple and ginkgo trees blushing in fiery red and yellow respectively. The ginkgo trees are the first to turn and you can see one of the two boulevards of golden yellow trees as soon as you enter the park’s Tachikawa gate. These trees are expected to turn full yellow in mid-November. The momiji and kaede trees, however, present their signature vermillion hues a bit later towards the end of November.

During this season, the park stays open after dark, with special light-ups taking place at the Katarai no Icho Namiki Ginkgo Tree Avenue (near the futsal and basketball courts), the canal ginkgo avenue by the Tachikawa park entrance and the traditional Japanese Garden from 4.30pm until 8.30pm.

While you can enjoy the light-ups at Ginkgo Tree Avenue with just the park's regular admission fee (¥450, free for junior high school students and younger), you need an extra ticket to enter the Japanese Garden for the evening light-up (advance ticket online ¥1,200, primary and junior high school students ¥600; same-day tickets sold at Komorebi House (cash-only) close to the Japanese Garden ¥1,300, ¥700).

Tickets to enter the Japanese Garden are available for purchase online from October 22, including park admission and Japanese Garden bundle pass for a discounted price of ¥1,600 (¥600).

Admission into the Japanese Garden is waived on October 29 and 30.

Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens, the meticulously tended traditional Japanese garden beside Tokyo Dome City, is hosting a special night opening this autumn. The sprawling green space, which was originally constructed as a private garden for the ruling Tokugawa family in 1629, is staying open until 9pm from November 13 to 24.

Come nightfall, several areas of Koishikawa Korakuen (not to be confused with the nearby Koishikawa Botanical Gardens) will be illuminated, including the artificial, forested Horai island on the main pond and the iconic Ipponmatsu pine tree. The highlight, however, is the projection mapping show at the Karamon Gate, the former main entrance to the inner courtyard of the Tokugawa family’s residence. The gate is a meticulously reconstructed structure built using Edo-period (1603–1868) architectural techniques, and the projection mapping display will showcase ukiyo-e and doro-e artworks depicting the vibrant lives of the same period. 

While you’re there, don’t miss the new autumn-leaf-themed projection mapping show at Engetsukyo Bridge, which is said to have been designed by Ming Dynasty Confucian scholar Zhu Shunsui. At the nearby Kantokutei teahouse, nerikiri wagashi will be served with matcha during the special nighttime viewing, while the garden will also host a stamp rally and shops selling dango snacks and mini paper lanterns.

The park will close temporarily at 5pm, and reopen at 6pm for the night opening. Special nighttime viewing tickets are required to enter the park after 6pm. These can be purchased in advance via KKday, Asoview and Seven Ticket.

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 an earphone-type monitoring device. The signals are visualised in real time through sound and projected imagery, creating an immersive meditation space. You can take home the results of your brainwave analysis and learn about your Zen meditation strengths and weaknesses. Note that the tea and ‘Brainwave Zen’ experience is a ticketed programme and requires a separate date- and time-designated reservation made online.

General tickets for Zen Night Tokyo are also available now, with early-bird discounts offered until October 13. Tickets include admission to the museum’s Daitoku-ji exhibition.

Grab your tickets now via the official website.

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 monumental balloon sculptures Yayoi-chan and A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe for the first time in Japan. Suspended within the soaring architecture, the works create an immersive dialogue between the artist’s inner universe and an expansive cosmic vision.

By activating overlooked corners of the city with works by internationally acclaimed and emerging artists alike, Tokyo Atlas proposes an alternative map of Tokyo – one that reveals the city’s hidden histories, evolving identities and boundless imaginative potential.

Ikebukuro’s rooftop Christmas market is back this holiday season, but it’s not quite what you’d expect. The vibe here is more festive beer garden, with beautiful lights, Christmas trees and all sorts of mini-games at Tobu Department Store’s 8th-floor Sky Deck Hiroba square.

One of the highlights is the Christmas-themed BBQ course, featuring a selection of grilled meats and seasonal drinks. The menu encompasses charcoal-grilled beef sirloin steak, chicken drumsticks, raclette cheese sausage, spare ribs, grilled vegetables, mulled wine, free-flowing alcoholic beverages and more. Available at three price points (¥3,500, ¥4,500, ¥6,000), the course also includes access to the fire pit, where guests can toast marshmallows and make s’mores around an open flame.

For those looking to enjoy smaller bites or drop by without a reservation, this year’s market area will feature six food and drink stalls offering à la carte options such as mulled wine, soup, hot chocolate, bread and Christmas desserts. It’s a convenient option for unwinding after a day of shopping or sightseeing around Ikebukuro.

Barbecue plan reservations can be made through Tablecheck.

Check the event Instagram for more information.

The annual illuminations at Oi Racecourse (also known as Tokyo City Keiba) are returning for their ninth and final run, with the sprawling venue bathed in colourful lights every evening. You can enjoy elaborate light-up and projection mapping displays across two areas.

Upon entering the venue, you’ll find yourself in the Twinkle area, where you’ll walk through a long corridor lit up with twinkling blue lights leading you to the main attractions. Aside from the vivid light projections on the ground and a rainbow-coloured Christmas tree, you’ll also come across the Aurora Forest with glowing trees and laser-lit mists. This particular attraction puts on regular five-minute light shows synchronised to music. 

The Wa no Kirameki area, on the other hand, occupies the centre of the racecourse. Here, a colourful water fountain becomes the centre of an aurora light display synchronised to music. There's also an illuminated cherry blossom tunnel, a large trellis of artificial wisteria all decked out with pink and purple lights, plus an illumination recreating a typical Japanese rural landscape complete with paddy fields and a stream.

What's more, with this event taking place at a racecourse, you can even pet and take photos with real horses.

Note: The illuminations are closed on November 16-20, November 30-December 4, December 24-January 1 2027.

Mt Takao is one of the most picturesque destinations in Tokyo to see autumn leaves. And one of the best ways to do that is by taking the scenic cable car ride, which brings you closer to the mountain’s Yakuoin temple. Here you can sample shojin ryori, a traditional Japanese Buddhist vegetarian meal. To secure a lunchtime seat, be sure to book a reservation for two or more people at least two days in advance via phone.

The best time to see the autumn leaves for 2026 is mid-November to early December, when the foliage around the cable car tracks turns deep orange and red.

Throughout the duration of the festival, you can also look forward to a host of free events at Kiyotaki Station, the cable car stop at the base of Mt Takao, including musical and dance performances by local university students. While details are yet to be announced for 2026, check the event's English website for the latest updates.

As is the case every year, the base of Mt Takao will be crowded in autumn, so it’s best to arrive via public transport.

Enjoy the changing of the leaves before anywhere else in Tokyo at the 60th-floor observatory of Ikebukuro’s Sunshine City this autumn. From September 10 to November 30, the relaxing indoor park with artificial turf is decorated with vivid red momiji leaves. Here, you can enjoy the seasonal foliage with the stunning Tokyo skyline as your backdrop without having to worry about rain.

During the event period, the Tenbo Park café is churning out autumn-themed menu items like the buttered sweet potato (¥900) and the refreshing Grape soda (¥800), an autumn-inspired concoction of Nagano Purple grapes, soda and jelly.

Tickets can be purchased via the official website.

Tokyo-born Mariko Mori is recognised for her visionary fusion of art, science and spirituality. After studying at New York’s Chelsea College of Art and completing the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program, she emerged in the early 1990s with striking performance-based photographs and videos exploring post-human identity and the aesthetics of a rapidly technologising world. Over the decades since, her practice expanded from futurist imagery to a broader investigation of themes including ancient cosmologies, quantum physics and ecological interconnectedness.

Mori’s large-scale installations, often created through collaborations with scientists, engineers and architects, invite audiences into meditative environments shaped by Buddhist cosmology and the concept of ‘oneness’. Her works are held in major global collections, and the Faou Foundation she established and runs aims to install site-specific public artworks on six continents to reconnect humanity with the natural world.

This show at the Mori Art Museum is the artist’s first major exhibition in Japan since 2002. Organised with the Guggenheim Museum’s Asian Art Initiative, the sweeping retrospective brings together some 80 works spanning three decades: interactive installations, sculptures, videos, photographs, drawings, and rare archival materials shown publicly for the first time.

Arranged as a chronological journey, the exhibition traces Mori’s evolution from cyborg-inspired early works to the immersive, contemplative environments of recent years. By foregrounding themes of interdependence, cosmic time and environmental stewardship, the show invites visitors to reflect on humanity’s place within a fragile and interconnected universe.

'Shibuya Archive Photo Exhibition 2026' showcases photos of the Shibuya area ranging from the early 1900s to the late 2010s. The collection is brought to you by the Commons Archive Collective, an organisation founded in 2021 that puts on exhibitions of its holdings, many of which feature Shibuya in some capacity.

This particular Shibuya-themed exhibition is in its fourth year. While the 2025 show featured 170 photos focusing on specific streets and places of cultural significance around Dogenzaka, Koen-dori, Center-gai and Shibuya Station, this year's edition shifts its focus to the people and activities that bring these streets to life. By layering the voices and oral histories of people who have spent time in Shibuya over streetscapes and photographs, the exhibition reveals aspects of the neighbourhood that cannot be captured through photography alone.

The exhibition takes place at 8/Court on the 8th floor of Shibuya Hikarie 11am-8pm on November 10-22, 11am-6pm on November 23. Entry to the exhibition is free of charge.

Harajuku rarely gives your eyes a moment off. Seeen Harajuku offers something closer to a reset. Designed by Kohei Nawa and his creative studio Sandwich, the building’s dark, rippling exterior gives way to a cavernous interior, where the sculptor’s exhibition ‘At Random’ unfolds across four floors and a spiral staircase.

Inside, familiar things become difficult to place. A television, a boombox and taxidermied animals appear beneath countless transparent spheres in Nawa’s PixCell works, their surfaces magnified and distorted into something almost otherworldly. Upstairs, the new PixCell-Memorandum series fragments photographs of cities into images that emerge and disappear as you move. A painting from his grandmother’s house becomes another kind of preserved memory, incorporated directly into a sculpture.

Elsewhere, black, velvet-covered Spark sculptures seem to suspend an explosion in midair, while bubbles continually form and burst in the silicone oil of Biomatrix. Marihiko Hara’s soundscape carries piano, bells, stones and seashells through the stairwell, giving the architecture its own shifting atmosphere.

Moving between objects that seem arrested in time and surfaces that refuse to stay still, the exhibition considers how much of what we see belongs to the thing itself – and how much we bring along with us.

Tokyo Node presents the largest solo exhibition to date by Japanese artist and art director Yoshirotten. Widely recognised for his ability to move seamlessly between fine art, graphic design, moving image, spatial design and commercial projects, the Tokyo-based visionary has spent more than two decades developing a distinctive visual language that bridges urban culture, technology, nature and the cosmos. From collaborations with global brands and musicians to ambitious independent art projects, his work consistently seeks to make the invisible visible.

‘Communication with the Other Side / Beyond Earth’ brings together the artist’s major ongoing series, while introducing new large-scale, site-specific installations. Across these works, Yoshirotten explores enduring themes that have shaped his practice: light, colour, natural phenomena, planetary systems and humanity’s relationship to the unknown.

A highlight of the display is a new project created in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which transforms space-related data into immersive visual experiences. Expanding upon the speculative and sci-fi-inspired worldview that has characterised Yoshirotten’s recent work, the exhibition invites visitors to contemplate perspectives that extend beyond the boundaries of everyday perception – and even beyond Earth itself.

Serving both as a retrospective of key developments in Yoshirotten’s career and as a platform for new experimentation, the exhibition marks a major milestone for one of Japan’s most influential contemporary visual creators. Through a dynamic fusion of art, technology and imagination, it offers a compelling vision of unseen worlds and the possibilities that lie beyond them.

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, Shibuya Incident and Season 3, The Culling Game Part 1.

The exhibition will be held in two parts: the first from September 16 to October 25, and the second from October 28 to December 7. Some exhibits will be changed between the two parts, giving you a reason to plan multiple visits.

Tickets are available for specific dates and time slots. You can currently purchase tickets for the first half of the exhibition via Lawson Ticket, and place applications for advance lottery tickets for the second half (from Aug 22).

The erotic art of old Edo returns to modern Tokyo’s most seductive ’hood with ‘Kunisada & Kuniyoshi: Shinjuku Kabukicho Shunga Exhibition – WA’. The fourth instalment in a series of exhibitions focused on Shunga, or traditional Japanese erotica, and organised by the Kabukicho-based Smappa! Group, the display showcases original ukiyo-e prints by two of the greatest masters of the form: Utagawa Kunisada and Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

Kunisada (1786-1864) is particularly renowned for depicting kabuki actors (yakusha-e) and beautiful women (bijin-ga). What’s more, his pieces are famed for their detailed portrayals of daily life in Edo, and have proved invaluable for historians researching the folksier aspects of the late feudal period.

Kuniyoshi (1798-1861), meanwhile, was dubbed ‘Edo’s ultimate graphic designer’. He illustrated the trending topics of his day – from political scandals and sexual fashions to mythical monsters – with a wit and humour that endeared him to the capital’s masses.

Curated from the collection of Mitsuru Uragami, one of Japan’s foremost ukiyo-e authorities and Shunga connoisseurs, the exhibition extends throughout the Shinjuku Kabukicho Noh Stage, incorporating bijin-ga, yakusha-e, musha-e (pictures of warriors) and illustrated books in addition to the erotica. Yasutaka Hayashi from artist collective Chim↑Pom from Smappa! Group returns as art director, bringing a hefty serving of Kabukicho flair to the table.

Advance tickets are available now via TimeOutShop. For a ¥200 discount on same-day tickets, use our Time Out Coupons offer.

Minami Tada (1924–2014) was a quietly radical figure in post-war Japanese art whose practice unfolded across sculpture, relief, lighting and architectural space. Working at the intersection of art, design and emerging industrial technologies, Tada developed a distinctive visual language that embraced transparency, reflection and light – materials and phenomena closely tied to Japan’s rapid economic growth. As a pioneering female artist operating in a male-dominated field, her work anticipated many later conversations around spatial perception and the expanded field of sculpture.

From August 29 to December 6, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo presents the artist’s first solo exhibition in Tokyo in 35 years. This long-overdue retrospective traces the arc of Tada’s career, from early paintings to her most emblematic sculptural works, as well as large-scale pieces created for architectural settings. Drawing on industrial materials and contemporary technologies, her works explore how light interacts with form and space, producing effects that shift with the viewer’s movement.

The exhibition also includes archival materials that shed light on the artist’s process and intellectual context, situating her practice within broader developments in post-war Japanese art and design. At a moment when interest in overlooked modernist figures is growing both in Japan and internationally, ‘Still, shimmering light’ offers a timely reassessment of an artist whose work feels strikingly current. Elegant, experimental and forward-looking, the exhibition reintroduces Tada as a vital voice in the history of contemporary art.