Kabuki, noh and Japanese theatre: where to see it

🎭 Performing arts · 71 destinations · 215 activities

Traditional Japanese theatre is watchable without knowing Japanese: the large theatres rent English audio guides and several sell single-act tickets, about an hour long, which is the sensible way to try it. The catch is the calendar: each theatre programmes by month and not every form is staged year-round.

The destinations, by real weight

What to do exactly

Kyoto — 28 activities

• Kabuki at the Minamiza in Shijo 4 h booking

  The oldest kabuki theatre in Japan by date of founding: the genre was born here at the start of the 17th century, on the bank of the Kamo. Its big fixture is the December Kaomise, when the maneki boards bearing the names of the cast are hung on the front of the building. Its marquee season is the December Kaomise, when the maneki with the actors' names go up on the facade. Dates and prices for each edition are not confirmed until the theatre publishes them.

• Miyako Odori, the spring dance of the geiko 1.5 h booking only 1-30 Apr

  All through April, the geiko and maiko of Gion Kobu stage a dance programme with a shamisen orchestra at the Gion Kobu Kaburenjo theatre. It has been held since 1872 and is the only occasion to see them perform without an invitation or an intermediary. There is an option that includes a tea ceremony beforehand. The 2026 edition was the 152nd, from 1 to 30 April at the Gion Kobu Kaburenjo, with performances at 12:30, 14:30 and 16:30.

• Baikasai, open-air tea among the plum trees 2 h only 25 Feb

  Fixed date: 25 February at Kitano Tenmangu, the anniversary of the death of Sugawara no Michizane, with the plum in blossom. Besides the rite, a nodate is set up, an open-air tea ceremony served by geiko and maiko from Kamishichiken, the district next to the shrine. Tickets for the nodate are limited and sell out; I have not been able to verify the price or the sales system for the 2027 edition, so confirm with the shrine in January. Access to the precinct and the market stalls is free.

• Gion Odori, the autumn dance of Gion Higashi 2 h booking only 1-10 Nov

  Gion Higashi, the smallest of the five districts, at the Gion Kaikan on Higashioji. It is the only one of the five dances held in autumn: fixed dates from 1 to 10 November, two performances a day at 13:30 and 16:00, an hour of show and doors an hour before. The 67th edition is the one from 1 to 10 November 2026, that is, still to come. Ticket with tea service 7,000 yen, without tea 6,000, programme 1,000. Booking through the form at gionodori.base.shop or by telephone on 075-561-0224. Five minutes on foot from exit 7 at Gion-Shijo. Falling in the middle of peak red-leaf season, it is the easiest to fit into an autumn trip and the one that sells out least.

• Imagine Noh, noh and kyogen with an introduction in English 2.5 h booking only scattered performances in October-November

  A programme created for foreign audiences at the Kyoto Kanze Kaikan, with four one-off performances in the 2026 season: 14, 22 and 28 October and 5 November. Reception with refreshments at 16:30, performance at 17:30 and finish at 19:00. Selected scenes of noh and kyogen are staged, preceded by an explanation in English from specialists and followed by a talk with the actors with consecutive interpreting. The price is high and steeply tiered: 23,000 yen from age 25, 5,000 yen from 18 to 25 and free from 6 to 17. Booking through imagine-noh.com, GetYourGuide, Viator, Peatix or the theatre box office. It is the most convenient way to understand noh in a single session, but it costs three times what an ordinary performance in the same hall does.

• Kamogawa Odori, the dance of Pontocho 2 h booking only May, most of the month

  Pontocho, at its Kaburenjo on the bank of the Kamo. It is the only one of the five held in May and the one with the longest run: the 187th edition ran from 5 to 22 May 2026, with three performances a day at 12:30, 14:20 and 16:10. Published prices: 7,000 yen for the special seat with a tea voucher, 6,000 yen special without tea and 4,000 yen general, but the ticketing site itself warned that general seats were not going on sale for the current edition: confirm this before counting on the cheap option. Tickets are bought online by card, by phone on 075-221-2025 with a bank transfer, or through an agency; seats cannot be chosen, there are no changes or cancellations once charged and there is no guarantee that a group will be seated together. Wheelchair spaces are available if you give notice by phone.

Bandai and Urabandai — 10 activities

• Climbing Mt. Bandai from Happodai: the short way 5 h must-see only from June to October, once the trail is clear of snow

  The short route and the most-used way to the summit of Mt. Bandai (1,816 m): 3.5 km from the Happodai car park, the highest saddle on the Bandai Goldline, which the Koriyama area tourism council puts at 1,194 m, through beech forest to the Kobo-shimizu spring, with two refreshment huts, and on up. That is 622 m of height difference, a marked path with no chains or ladders, though Fukushima Prefecture warns that 'climbing is not hiking', that there are fixed ropes on the steep sections and that you need map and compass. The park's visitor centre gives 2 h 10 min up and the Kitashiobara association 2 h 15; coming down, 1 h 30 or 1 h 40. The park grades it advanced, but only because its scale reserves the beginner grade for level boardwalk strolls; the Koriyama council grades it beginner to intermediate. The prefecture bans roadside parking and directs drivers to the second Happodai car park or the Koganedaira one when the first fills up.

• The Goshiki-numa pond trail 2 h must-see

  About 4 km of level walking and an hour and a half on the move, measured from the park's visitor centre to the shore of Lake Hibara - from one trail entrance to the other it is 3.6 km - through the thirty-odd pools that make up the group; the park grades it beginner and gives it some 40 m of height gain. Nearly all are acidic and loaded with iron, manganese and aluminium, and all are fed from the same place, Akanuma up in the crater, but each mixes differently - some with water from Lake Hibara, others with deep groundwater: the blues come from how suspended aluminium-silicate particles scatter light, the reds from iron oxide settled on the bed. The shade also shifts with the weather, the hour and the angle. The path is stony and turns muddy after rain; the easy way is to leave the car at one end, walk one way and take the bus back.

• Autumn colour on the plateau in October 4 h only 1 Oct - 10 Nov

  Urabandai is mostly young forest grown over the 1888 avalanche: beech, maple and birch that catch fire in mid-October above the pond water. The colour moves downhill, so within the same fortnight you find it first at the ropeway and on the Goldline, then a week later at Goshiki-numa and along the Inawashiro shore. It is the busiest season of the year and the one that fills the lodgings.

• The submerged torii of Oyamazumi shrine 1.5 h

  Hibara-juku was a staging post on the road from Aizu to Yonezawa; in 1888 the lake took it, and the shrine was cut in two, its hall left safe on the new shore and its gateway underwater. The lake level rises and falls five or six metres between seasons: in winter, out on the ice, and during the April-May thaw, the torii and the stumps of the trees that lined the approach emerge. In summer you see it from a canoe or a boat. It is about a 20-minute walk from the Hibara history museum car park, on a path Kitashiobara village lists as partly closed in the 2026 season, so check before you go.

• Boardwalks at Nakase-numa and Renge-numa 1.5 h

  A short loop of wooden boardwalks around the Nakase and Renge ponds, north of Goshiki-numa, with a viewpoint where Mt. Bandai appears reflected and the collapse scar faces you head-on. Far fewer people come here than to Goshiki-numa, and it is the best spot on the plateau for birds first thing in the morning.

• Boat trip on Lake Hibara 1 h only 20 Apr - 15 Nov

  Hibara is the largest lake in Urabandai, 10.8 km² in area and 31 m deep at its deepest according to the Environment Ministry, and the clearest case of how they all formed: the 1888 avalanche dammed the Nagase river and over about two years the water swallowed the village of Hibara. The sightseeing boat does a loop of around 35 minutes with Mt. Bandai behind, and the speedboats offer a run called 'the torii on the lake bed', which passes over what went under.

Shimabara and Unzen — 9 activities

• Crossing the Ariake Sea from Kumamoto 1 h must-see

  Two different companies link Kumamoto Port with Shimabara Port, and it is worth knowing which is which. Kumamoto Ferry's Ocean Arrow is the fast one, about 30 minutes against the conventional ship's 60, with six sailings a day each way (seven on weekends and holidays from April to December): 1,600 yen per adult, 800 per child and 4,400 for a car under 4 m with the driver. Kyusho Ferry's conventional ship covers the 21 km in about 60 minutes, runs ten round trips a day from 7:00 and is much cheaper: 1,180 yen per adult and 3,200 for the car; during its dry-dock weeks in June and December it drops to five. On foot you need no reservation; with a car, Kumamoto Ferry takes bookings from a month ahead and you must be at the quay thirty minutes before departure, while motorbikes and bicycles are always first come, first served.

• The jigoku of Unzen Onsen 1.5 h must-see

  A bare hillside in the middle of the hot-spring town, with some thirty named fumaroles (Daikyokan, Oito, Seishichi) and wooden walkways between them. The steam reaches 120 degrees; it is a strongly acidic sulphur system and it smells like it. Entry is free and the site is open 24 hours, though there is no lighting at night; the area car park is paid. There is a steam bench where you rest your feet to feel the heat of the ground.

• Climbing Mount Fugen 4 h

  The volcano's old summit, 1,359 metres, is walked from Nita Pass, usually by combining the ropeway with the ridge path: half a day of mountain trail with real ascent, nothing technical but not a stroll either. Unzendake has been at volcanic alert level 1, the lowest on the Japanese scale, since 1 December 2007, and at that level the trails are walked; the Heisei-Shinzan dome, by contrast, is off limits, and the Meteorological Agency itself warns that approaching its fumaroles can cost you your life. Check the current level on the Japan Meteorological Agency site the day before, and follow the signs and Nagasaki Prefecture's trail hazard map.

• Nita Pass and the Myoken ropeway 2.5 h

  Nita Pass, at about 1,100 metres, is reached by a one-way loop road 11.3 km up from Unzen Onsen; the Ministry of the Environment warns that it is closed off in bad weather, not just in wind. From the pass a paid ropeway covers the last stretch up Mount Myoken, with the Heisei-Shinzan dome opposite and the Ariake Sea below. Neither the road nor the ropeway runs at night, and the ropeway stops in strong wind: early morning is the time to go.

• Omisaki, the station at the water's edge 2 h

  A platform with no building and the water of the Ariake Sea right below the edge: the Shimabara Railway bills it as the station closest to the sea in Japan, and yellow handkerchiefs left by visitors hang from the fence. Shimabara station sells the Oumisakippu combination ticket for 1,000 yen, which covers the return trip, a handkerchief and four hours of parking. There is no car park at Omisaki: the company specifically asks people to come by train.

• Facing Heisei-Shinzan 1.5 h

  The lava dome that grew between 1990 and 1995 and ended up taller than Mount Fugen is called Heisei-Shinzan and has been a national natural monument since 2004: it stands at about 1,483 metres today, and 1,486 when it was named in 1996, as the eruption ended. You see it close up from the Heisei-Shinzan Nature Centre on the Tarukidaira plateau, about 2.5 km from the summit: free entry, 9:00 to 17:00, closed Tuesdays and on 31 December and 1 January. Around it you can watch the vegetation coming back over the 1993 pyroclastic deposits. The dome itself still fumes and approaching it is forbidden.

Kunisaki Peninsula and Usa — 8 activities

• Driving the Rokugo Manzan valleys 3 h

  The peninsula is a worn-out volcano: valleys radiate from Mount Futago at its centre like the segments of an orange, and they are the six gō that give Rokugo Manzan its name, Kunawa, Tashibu, Imi, Kunisaki, Musashi and Aki. The road crosses from one to the next, slowly, single-lane in places, between rock spires and early-morning fog. With the four big stops it fills the whole day, and at first light there is hardly a car about.

• Sunset over the stripes at Matama 1.5 h

  At low tide the mud at Matama beach is drawn into curving bands and the sun sets directly ahead across the Suo Inland Sea. It is on Japan's list of a hundred best sunsets and, since 26 March 2021, a Registered Monument of Japan in the scenic-site category; it is free and there is parking alongside. The catch that decides your visit is that low tide and sunset have to coincide, and they do not every day: the city publishes a monthly calendar of the good dates. Half an hour by car from Usa station.

• The medieval terraces of Tashibu-no-sho 1.5 h

  A valley of paddies still farmed on the same plot layout as in the Middle Ages; the city credits it with twelve hundred years of history. It has been a national Important Cultural Landscape since 2010 and falls within the FAO Globally Important Agricultural Heritage designation granted to the peninsula in 2013. It is at its best when the fields are flooded and mirror the mountain; view it from the Asahi Kannon and Yuhi Kannon lookouts. Free, with parking by the hamlet.

• Ebisu valley from the lookout 1.5 h

  The same place as the Nakayama Senkyo ridge, but seen from the flat and risking nothing: a valley hemmed in by walls of lava eroded into columns and spires, with an upper and a lower arm, caves and the remains of hermitages at the foot of the rock. This is the landscape that explains why monks came in here to do penance. It has been a national Place of Scenic Beauty since October 2018 and there is parking by the lookout.

• Nagasakibana cape, flowers and art 2.5 h

  A flat cape at the northern tip of the peninsula with sea on three sides, planted with some twenty-seven million rapeseed flowers in spring and a million and a half sunflowers in summer, and holding outdoor pieces by Yoko Ono and Choi Jeong-hwa; its Room of Sun and Moon won the art prize at the 25th Japan Media Arts Festival. There is a swimming beach alongside, bikes, and a campsite with cabins. Reception 9:00 to 17:00, closed Thursdays except in July and August. This is what saves the day with children once they have seen enough Buddhas.

• The Nakayama Senkyo ridge (mountaineers only) 3 h

  A narrow rock ridge with an unrailed stone arch, the Mumyō-kyō, that monks crossed as a test. This is not a stroll: Bungotakada city itself warns on its website that "fatal falls occur frequently here" and asks anyone unsure of their fitness not to set out. There are chains, iron ladders and passages too narrow to let anyone by. If you do not hike mountains regularly, the honest answer is no, and the valley looks just as good from below.

Kagoshima and Sakurajima — 7 activities

• Yunohira Observatory, as close as you may go 1.5 h must-see

  The highest point on Sakurajima open to the public, on the northern flank, with the volcano wall above you and the city across the water. You do not climb to the summit: the Japan Meteorological Agency has kept eruption alert level 3, 'restricted access', in force since 27 July 2022, closing the two kilometres around the Minamidake and Showa craters. Reached by the Sakurajima Island View loop bus or by car from the port, and free to enter. Check the volcano's page on jma.go.jp before you go, as the level can rise overnight.

• Sakurajima Island View loop bus 2 h

  A sightseeing bus that leaves Sakurajima port and loops the western viewpoints in about 55-60 minutes, with 15 runs a day. It costs 230 yen a ride or 500 for an adult day pass (120 and 250 for children), and it is the practical way to reach the Yunohira and Akamizu observatories without a car. It takes no Suica or SUGOCA, only cash, credit cards or the local Rapica IC card.

• Shiroyama Hill lookout 1 h

  Above the city centre, the terrace has the whole city on one side and Sakurajima dead ahead on the other, with Kinko Bay in between; on clear days you can see as far as the cone of Kaimondake. Take the City View sightseeing bus, or walk up the trail that starts by Terukuni shrine, through camphor woods. Free and open at any hour, and the night view is the Kagoshima postcard.

• Arimura Lava Observatory 1 h

  On the southern side of the volcano, a boardwalk winding over the lava of the 1946 eruption, with concrete shelters against falling rock along the way: they are there for real, not for show. Free and open whenever the alert level allows; about 20 min by car from Sakurajima port, on the road that circles the island.

• Ibusuki no Tamatebako sightseeing train 1 h booking

  A designer train running from Kagoshima-Chuo to Ibusuki hugging the shore, painted white on one side and black on the other, with window-facing seats and a puff of mist from the door as it opens, a joke on the tale of the treasure box. Three return runs a day and limited seats: reserve, and with a JR Kyushu Rail Pass you pay only the reservation.

• Lake Ikeda and Cape Nagasakibana 3 h

  The southern tip of the Satsuma peninsula: a crater lake almost five kilometres across, the near-perfect cone of Kaimondake behind it, and a lighthouse cape from which the outline of Yakushima is visible on clear days. Half a day by car from Ibusuki; without a car there is a sightseeing bus, but with very few departures.

Tokyo — 14 activities

• Kabuki at the Kabukiza in Ginza 2 h must-see booking

  The most important kabuki theatre in the world, rebuilt in 2013 on the site of the 1889 house with an office tower behind it. The decisive thing for a traveller: single-act tickets, hitomakumi, are sold much cheaper and without booking, bought the same day at the side box office and seated on the fourth floor. English audio guide available.

• Awa Odori of Koenji 4 h only the last weekend of August

  The largest awa dance festival outside Tokushima: 10,000 dancers and close to a million spectators in streets five metres wide, on the last weekend of August. There are paid stands and free stretches, and the stations jam solid once it ends.

• Meikyoku kissa: classical music cafes where nobody talks 1.5 h

  Cafes born when buying records was out of reach, with three-metre speakers, armchairs facing forward like church pews and a ban on conversation and phones. The Lion in Shibuya has run since 1926 and holds 5,000 records.

• National Noh Theatre in Sendagaya 3 h booking

  Noh is the oldest living theatre in the world, dating from the 14th century, with carved masks and a deliberately glacial rhythm; it usually alternates with kyogen, the short comic pieces that lighten it. Note: the National Theatre of Japan at Hanzomon has been closed for reconstruction since 2023 and its programming is scattered, so it is worth confirming where each piece is staged.

• Rakugo at the Suzumoto Engeijo in Ueno 3 h

  Tokyo's oldest variety theatre, running since 1857: a storyteller sitting on a cushion plays every part in a comic tale using only a fan and a cloth. There is no translation, so it works best with some Japanese or plain curiosity about the form; the programme rotates every ten days and you can come and go freely.

• A full session at Shinjuku Suehirotei 3 h

  Tokyo's last wooden vaudeville house, built in 1946 in Shinjuku Sanchome, with side galleries of tatami from which you watch the stage side-on. 3,500 yen for adults, 3,000 for students and 2,500 for primary schoolchildren buys the whole session, and these are long: 12:00 to 16:15 for the day programme and 16:45 to 20:30 at night, alternating rakugo storytelling with magic, juggling and comic duos. You can come and go as you like. It is all in Japanese, and most of the joke lives in the language.

Hiraizumi — 6 activities

• Spring Fujiwara Festival 4 h only 1-5 May

  From 1 to 5 May the town fills with people dressed as they were in the twelfth century. The big day is the 3rd, with the procession re-enacting Yoshitsune's arrival in Hiraizumi, around a hundred people on foot and on horseback, the lead role played each year by a well-known actor or singer. The 1st has a children's procession, the 4th Noh at Chuson-ji, and the 5th ennen dances at Motsu-ji and the Benkei mochi-lifting contest. It falls in the middle of Golden Week: book months ahead or sleep in Ichinoseki.

• Autumn Fujiwara Festival 3 h only 1-3 Nov

  From 1 to 3 November the festival returns in a smaller form, without May's mass procession: an offering procession to the Konjikido, Noh on the Edo-period stage at Hakusan Shrine and ennen dances at Motsu-ji. It overlaps with the Chuson-ji chrysanthemum show (20 October to 15 November) and with the red maples on the Tsukimizaka slope, which is the best argument for coming in autumn.

• Ennen no Mai on the night of 20 January 3 h only 20 Jan

  On the night of 20 January, in the Jogyodo of Motsu-ji, the monks perform the Ennen no Mai before the god Matarajin: a liturgy of dance and chant inherited from the twelfth century, handed down unbroken and designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. It begins after ten at night and runs into the small hours, in snow and several degrees below zero. Sort out your ride home first: there are no trains at that hour.

• Firelight Noh at Chuson-ji 2 h only 14 Aug

  On the night of 14 August, fires are lit on both sides of the 1853 stage at Hakusan Shrine and Noh is performed in the open air, on the very boards where it has been staged since the Edo period. You watch standing or sitting on the ground and capacity is small, so arrive well in advance; it falls in the middle of Obon, when everything is full.

• Gokusui no En, the banquet by the stream 2 h only the fourth Sunday of May

  On the fourth Sunday of May, beside the yarimizu stream at Motsu-ji, poets dressed as Heian courtiers must compose a waka before the floating sake cup drifts level with them. It is a modern revival, but it is staged on the only original Heian-period yarimizu left in Japan. Included in the normal 700 yen temple ticket.

• Hakusan Shrine and its Noh stage 0.5 h

  High in the Chuson-ji grounds, this shrine keeps the only Edo-period Noh stage still standing anywhere in Tohoku: rebuilt in 1853 by the Date clan after a fire and designated an Important Cultural Property. It has the hashigakari bridgeway, a mirror room and resonance jars buried under the boards. Free to visit, and it makes more sense once you know Noh is still performed here twice a year.

Daisen — 5 activities

• Autumn in Daisen-ji village 3 h only 15 Oct - 10 Nov

  The beech forest and the maples along the approach turn between mid-October and the first days of November, the colour dropping down the slope week by week. It is Daisen's busiest stretch of the year: the bus from Yonago runs full, car parks close by mid-morning, and the only answer is to start early.

• Down the Gyoja-dani into the Motodani cirque 2 h

  Rather than retracing the ascent, at the Gyoja-dani junction — the 5th station of the normal route — you turn north and drop into the Motodani cirque: the Ministry of the Environment gives 70 minutes from that junction down to Ogamiyama-jinja Okumiya. Ahead of you stands the north face, a wall of volcanic debris that crumbles year after year, which is exactly why the ridge above is written off.

• Kagikake Pass and the ring road 2 h only 10 Apr - 30 Nov

  The road that loops around Daisen's southern side crosses Kagikake Pass, the classic viewpoint of the south face: a wall of gullies above a sea of beech, nothing like the tidy cone you see from the coast. The 7.1 km stretch between Masumizu and Oku-Daisen closes for the winter and reopened on 7 April in 2026; without a car it is hard to reach now that the foothill bus has been withdrawn.

• The Hoki Fuji from Yumigahama beach 1.5 h

  From the Yumigahama sand bar between Yonago and Sakaiminato, Daisen shows its western face, the only one from which it looks like a clean cone — hence the nickname Hoki Fuji that the Ministry of the Environment itself gives this western face. The interest is the contrast with Kagikake Pass, where the same mountain is a broken wall. Best early, before the top clouds over.

• Masumizu-kogen and its chairlift 2 h only 1 Apr - 30 Nov

  A highland meadow on the western flank with a short chairlift up to a viewpoint: the Ministry of the Environment lists the Yumigahama sand bar, the Shimane peninsula, the Nakaumi lagoon, Lake Shinji and, on a clear day, the Oki Islands on the horizon and Sanbe-san to the west. Hoki town, the municipality it stands in, gives it as running April to November, 9:00 to 17:00, closed on Tuesdays, with a return ticket at 1,500 yen and 1,000 yen for ages 4 to junior high; bad weather can stop it. It is one of the few places on Daisen where you gain height without walking, and sunset over the sea is what to aim for.

What only happens on specific dates

• Muhyo: Unzen's frost-covered trees Shimabara and Unzen foggy, frosty days
• Ennen no Mai on the night of 20 January Hiraizumi 20 Jan
• Authentic yokagura in the hamlets Takachiho Gorge late November to early February
• The winter lantern festival, which is no longer called the snow one Miyama late January or early February; the 22nd edition, from 30 January to 6 February 2027
• Setsubun at Yasaka with the four hanamachi Kyoto 2-3 Feb
• The Oni Odori of Rozan-ji Kyoto Setsubun day (2 or 3 February)
• Baikasai, open-air tea among the plum trees Kyoto 25 Feb
• Mibu Kyogen, the silent theatre of Mibu-dera Kyoto 2-3 February, 29 April to 5 May and the October long weekend
• Enburi: the field-levelling tool turned into a dance Hachinohe 17-20 February
• Hanezu Odori at Zuishin-in Kyoto the last Sunday of March
• Kitano Odori, the dance of Kamishichiken Kyoto late March to early April
• Miyako Odori, the spring dance of the geiko Kyoto 1-30 Apr
• The other nenbutsu kyogen: Senbon Enma-do, Shinsen-en and Saga Kyoto April-May, late October and early November
• Kyo Odori, the dance of Miyagawacho Kyoto the first half of April
• Boat trip on Lake Hibara Bandai and Urabandai 20 Apr - 15 Nov
• Driving the Bandai Goldline Bandai and Urabandai 20 Apr - 15 Nov
• The Lake Line and the Nakatsugawa gorge Bandai and Urabandai 20 Apr - 15 Nov
• Kagikake Pass and the ring road Daisen 10 Apr - 30 Nov
• Masumizu-kogen and its chairlift Daisen 1 Apr - 30 Nov
• The rowing boat in the gorge of mist Oku-Aizu from mid-April to late November
• Noge Daidogei, the street performers' festival Yokohama one weekend in mid-April
• Namahage taiko at Oga Onsen Akita and the Oga Peninsula 1 Apr - 30 Nov
• The great jet in the Oyasu gorge Yokote the trail open from mid-April to mid-November
• Inuyama Festival Inuyama the first Saturday and Sunday of April
• Shikoku Konpira Kabuki Oshibai Kotohira about two weeks in April
• Hiroshima kagura, the Wednesday show Hiroshima 1 Apr - 31 Dec
• Renge-e-mai dances at Kokubunji temple Oki Islands 21 Apr
• Momotesai, spring bugaku dances Miyajima 16-18 Apr
• Kamakura Matsuri and the dance of Shizuka Gozen Kamakura the second and third weekends of April
• Mifune Matsuri, the Heian court on the Oi Kyoto the third Sunday of May

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