Toyama’s Owara Kaze no Bon Festival
This unique wind festival features masked dancers parading through the streets.
Cover photo: Owara Kaze no Bon dancers parade through Suwamachi Street, Yatsuo Town, Toyama, Japan (2024). Photo by Danny With Love.
Intro
Last weekend, I visited Toyama (富山) for the first time. The area is famous for delicious firefly squid and home to a stellar glass museum, featuring work by renowned American artist Dale Chihuly.
The Toyama Glass Art Museum is currently hosting the Toyama International Glass Exhibition! Every work was beautiful; I am in awe of the impressive results that artists can achieve with such a fragile medium. Despite the rainy weather, I also enjoyed walking around Toyama Castle and Kansui Park, a scenic area developed around the city’s historic waterway.
I have wanted to visit Toyama for many years, but the route there was quite slow and complicated from my home in Fukui. Now, thanks to the new Hokuriku Shinkansen extension, I can travel to Toyama in under one hour!
Dance of Wind
The main reason I finally visited this weekend was for the annual festival Owara Kaze no Bon (おわら風の盆). It’s one of Japan’s most famous “Bon” events, a custom of folk dances performed for ancestral spirits.
Held in the historic town of Yatsuo, Owara Kaze no Bon is known for its unique atmosphere, featuring masked dancers parading through the streets, followed by bands of melancholic musicians — playing shamisen (Japanese lute), taiko (drums), and the rare kokyu (violin). It’s an enchanting experience, which grows increasingly mysterious as night descends.
Taking place September 1st to 3rd, the event marks the peak of Japan’s typhoon season. Kaze no Bon translates to “Dance of Wind,” meant to pacify the wind god and pray for bountiful harvest. This year’s festival coincides with the landfall of Typhoon Shanshan, which has caused widespread damage across the southern island of Kyushu. Aside from cloudy skies and light rain, the Hokuriku Region was unaffected and the event went on as planned.
The women’s dance is sophisticated and elegant, while the men’s dance is dynamic and powerful. There are variations in choreography, costume, and music across Yatsuo’s 11 participating neighborhoods. Traditionally, dancers must be single and under the age of 25, but exceptions are made to accommodate the town’s shrinking population.
Owara Kaze no Bon dates back over 300 years, only taking its current form a century ago. While the origins are uncertain, the festival is said to have begun as a boisterous affair. According to one theory, the name “Owara” is derived from the word owarai (大笑い), meaning “great laughter.” Shy dancers hid their faces to avoid embarrassment, a practice preserved today with okesa-gasa (straw hats). It’s exciting to catch a glimpse of the dancers’ faces — a pair of lips or chiseled jawline — as they move through the narrow streets.
Awash in the warm light of lanterns, the latticework facades of the townhouses are a perfect backdrop to the mesmerizing dances — though at moments it’s difficult to hear the gentle music over the voices of fellow spectators. Side streets offer the usual festival foods, like fried noodles and chocolate bananas. The crowds seemed to peak as I was leaving, around 20:00 (8 PM).
Last year, Owara Kaze no Bon was held for the first time since COVID-19. Prior to the pandemic, the three-day festival attracted as many as 200,000 visitors. This year, organizers have introduced paid seating and private shows to fundraise for preservation efforts. The town is also home to the Yatsuo Owara Museum, opened in the year 2000.
If you’re interested in Japanese festivals, I recommend a visit. By train, Toyama is just three hours away from Tokyo! I am so grateful for this unique experience and I hope the festival will be passed down to future generations to enjoy.
