We woke up in snowy Aomori city, with a view of the Shinkansen tracks and the busy Friday morning traffic. We went for a walk around the area and enjoyed another day of seeing Japan under the snow. Once ready we checked out and walked across the road to the Times Car Rental to pick up the second car of our trip. With Times Car Rental you choose a class of car, but cannot choose a specific car to rent, so we were pleasantly surprised that we were given one of Japan’s infamous box cars. This was the first time we had one of these cube cars, as usually we are given someone akin to the Nissan Note. The car was so spacious inside but did feel a bit weird to drive in at first.

Our plan for the day was to drive down to Akita prefecture to go to a special festival we had been looking forward to for many years, the Namahage festival. We had seen this festival on NHK World and had been obsessed ever since, and now, after two cancellation holidays thanks to COVID, it was finally time!

The drive was meant to take 2-3 hours to get to Akita city, but after leaving Shin-Aomori just after 9am we didn’t get to Akita city until 2:45pm, it was such a long drive thanks to the winter weather, and the slower speed limits on the expressways through Aomori and Akita. The festival is held at Shinzan Shrine in the Oga peninsula north of Akita city. This area is very rural, and there were no hotels available so we booked in Akita city and then we going to drive the hour to Oga. We checked into the hotel at 3pm and ordered Uber Eats to the hotel so we had a packed dinner for the festival, as there were no restaurants around. Coco Curry in the car we set off in a blizzard to the peninsula.

It was a long drive from Akita to Shinzan shrine, taking two hours rather than the advertised 1 thanks to the sudden blizzard slowing traffic. We took a wrong turn once on the peninsular and found ourselves at a michi-no-eki which was Namahage themed. We were lucky enough to meet two Namahage in the car park who were ushering tourists onto buses to get to the shrine.

You might wonder who the Namahage are, the Namahage are from local folk tales or ogres who live in the surrounding mountains and come down once a year at New Year’s. Each year the Namahage will burst into the homes of the residents demanding sake and mochi and shouting at children to check they will behave as Namahage hates the lazy. Once sated with sake and mochi the Namahage returns back into the forests, not to be seen for another year. Although perceived through a Western lens we may view these creatures as malevolent, but it is good luck to have Namahage in your home. Every New Year’s the men of the village will dress up and go from home to home, scaring children, and sharing in sake and mochi. However, every February a festival is held at the shrine, so anyone can take part in this ritual.

Due to COVID measures, you needed to register in advance online, there were Japanese and English options, and I was forced to use the English form without a Japanese phone number. This did mean that we had to say we had a child with us, as there was no option for 0 children! Unfortunately, after queuing and speaking to the staff they couldn’t find our registration, even when I shared the email, but they allowed us in after paying our 1000¥. For the cost, we got a special knife-shaped ema board, leaflet, and poster, which I kept in my bag and bought the home as treasure 🙂 The blizzard earlier meant the shrine was dusted with snow, and the atmosphere was great. We arrived just in time to see the start of the festival – the ritual of the men becoming Namahage.

We saw the first event of the festival for a distance, the men involved in the ceremony were blessed by a Shinto priest and given their Namahage masks – transforming into Namahagae before loudly making their way up the shrine stairs into the mountain forest. I can’t show it here, but the Namahage have a specific growl, Google it!

The whole festival was being televised, and there was a big screen in the shrine complex to see each aspect of it if you cannot get close. The crowd was bustling, and we didn’t have the schedule on us so weren’t prepped to move from area to area in enough time to get a front-row seat. The festival included a reenactment of the Namahage visiting a house, a fire-dance, a 15 minute taiko performance, and culminated in the Namahage descending from the mountain forest holding blazing torches and huge knives to terrorise children (and pose for photos).

The drum performance was one of the best things I have ever witnessed, I would recommend that if you can, make your way up to Akita for this festival, I will include a short clip of this at the end of the blog post. It runs for three days on the second weekend of February.

The end of the festival was absolute chaos, in the best way, there were multiple Namahage wearing their terrifying blue and red masks running around with fire and giant wooden weapons, chasing children, and screaming until their throats were raw. We stayed until the very end and were able to speak to some of the Namahage, who very politely introduced themselves. I was so glad we made the long drive all the way down for this festival, it is possibly the most quintessential Japanese tradition I have been able to witness.