Kawasaki Halloween Festival

Kawasaki, near Tokyo, is host to a number of eccentric festivals and events, including the notorious Kanamara festival in April (where folk carry a giant pink penis statue down the street.) This month sees the return of Kawasaki’s annual Halloween festival, the highlight being a wild street parade on October the 28th, featuring some of most insanely outlandish costumes you’ve ever seen. An eclectic array of costumed freaks, from Pikachu to Freddy Krueger, hit the streets of downtown Kawasaki and follow floats blasting out pounding techno tunes, much to the horror and amusement of bewildered bystanders.
Below are some photos I took of the parade over the last couple of years and here’s a review of 2005’s event.

The parade starts at 2PM on October the 28th, at Kawasaki’s Cittadella complex. Other events include a screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and a potentially hilarious “70s/80s Dancing Party Halloween Special” on the 27th.
Learn more at the official website.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, 2007 at 9:18 am and is filed under Cool, Crazy, Festivals, Fun, Japan, Kawasaki, Tokyo, Weird. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to “Kawasaki Halloween Festival”

  1. clarkebruce Says:
    October 12, 2007 at 3:04 pm | Reply

    Freaky.

    It was hard to work out which of the masks you were behind.

  2. roaf Says:
    October 12, 2007 at 5:48 pm | Reply

    I’m not in any of them! I’d probably make a good Frankenstein, though.

  3. Woeful Says:
    October 12, 2007 at 8:04 pm | Reply

    Very cool. Looks like a lot of fun!

  4. More Halloween « Catholic in Japan Says:
    October 12, 2007 at 10:11 pm | Reply

    [...] http://gaijintonic.com/2007/10/12/kawasaki-halloween-festival-2007/ [...]

  5. southofreality Says:
    October 19, 2007 at 2:17 am | Reply

    Awesome! I live in Kawasaki and didn’t know about this. I’m definitely going to check it out this year.

  6. roaf Says:
    October 19, 2007 at 7:47 am | Reply

    Yeah, it’s definitely worth going along!

  7. Halloween in Tokyo 2008: Vampires, S & M, and Ozzy Osbourne « Gaijin Tonic Says:
    October 24, 2008 at 12:39 am | Reply

    [...] party’s from 17:00-22:00 in Club Citta (entrance is 1500 yen.) I wrote about it last year here, and click here for the official site. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Kawasaki [...]

  8. Kawasaki Halloween Festival 2008 « Kitsune’s Thoughts Says:
    October 26, 2008 at 8:29 am | Reply

    [...] Website Weird Asia Halloween Costumes (Wierd Asia News) Halloween in Japan (Reuters) Kawasaki Halloween Festival (Gaijin Tonic) Halloween in Tokyo 2008: Vampires, S & M, and Ozzy Osbourne (Gaijin [...]

  9. Kawasaki Halloween Pics 2008 « Gaijin Tonic Says:
    October 27, 2008 at 2:20 pm | Reply

    [...] Halloween Pics 2008 Here are some of my trademark out-of-focus snaps of this year’s Halloween festival in [...]

Leave a Reply