Furusato Matsuri Tokyo 2020
– festivals and tastes of Japan

10 – 19 January 2020
Tokyo Dome

 
Every year, around mid-January when New Year’s joyous feeling still lingers for many, Furusato Matsuri Tokyo provides extra days of celebration and good vibes.

The 10-day festival at the Tokyo Dome, home of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team, offers a wonderful opportunity to discover colourful performances of matsuri (traditional festivals) and local delicacies you never met before from all over Japan.

Festivals from around the country

Colourful floats and energetic dances representing major Japanese festivals will rock the stadium every day.

They include the spectacular Nebuta (neputa) festival with a fantastic float from Aomori prefecture and “Akita kanto festival” involving the feat of manipulating long vertical poles decorated with 46 lanterns. Also, “Niihama drum festival” from Ehime prefecture features a magnificent float to be carried by a large group of people.

Meanwhile, performances from fantastic dance festivals – Kochi Yosakoi Festival, all-Okinawa Eisa Festival and many more – will make you dance merrily with the performers and other audience members.

Aomori Nebuta Festival

Niihama Drum Festival

At the Tokyo Dome

The 11th National Donburi Championship

“Donburi” stands for a kind of Japanese rice-bowl dishes with a variety of toppings and ingredients.

In this gourmet contest, a total of 14 most popular bowls – 3 seeded and 11 selected in the preliminary round – will compete over this year’s best donburi titles.

You can taste these delicious bowls (each bowl costs 500 yen) and vote for your best donburi.

◆3 Seeded donburis (“seed donburi”)

Tokachi gyu-toro don (Hokkaido)

◆11 Trial winners (“yosenkai-toppa donburi”)

◆Hall-of-Fame donburis (“Den-don”)

– out of competition this year

Uni-meshi-don (Hokkaido)

Local gourmet market (“Nigiwai-ichi”)

For food and drink, a great many stalls will entice you to try more than 300 local specialties, ranging from fresh seafood and wagyu beef, to a variety of regional dishes and snacks, traditional and contemporary.

◆ Special Night events

For a merry evening, drop in a Special Night event held every day from 6 to 9 pm. Enjoy delicious foods, local beers and wines, while watching the spectacle of traditional festivals.

Ke-gani (crab) bento

Hitachino NEST beer

Nagasaki Castella Pudding

Local mascots party

A total of some 60 local mascots – cuddly ambassadorial idols of municipalities and prefectures from all over Japan – will show up daily, at 3 pm at the festival space (“O-matsuri hiroba”).

Live music of CHARAMEL, metal band led by Funassy

Funassyi is a pear fairy and “unofficial” mascot of Funabashi City (Chiba pref. near Tokyo), vastly famous and popular in Japan.

Funassyi will stage a fiery music performance of CHARAMEL, the all-mascot metal band (s)he leads, on 15 January (Wed) for a “Special Night event”. Other than Funassy (Vo), the band members are: Akkuma (Gt), Kapal (Ba) and Nyangostar (Dr).

CHARAMEL