Ogaki Setsubun Hadaka Matsuri

There are dozens of hadaka (=naked) festivals each year in Japan and today i was visiting this one in Ogaki, in Gifu prefecture. Each year in the afternoon of February 3rd the people of this town hold this event, but if you want there is nothing stopping you to enter this festival too .. just bring some Fundoshi (loin cloth) and some white socks and you’ll be good to join!

The weather this year was absolute fantastic for this kind of festival. It was freezing cold and snowing (sometimes raining) – which makes the act of defying the cold so much more challenging. Nevermind the buckets of cold water that people were throwing to make sure that everyone got wet and freezing (even us photographers in the first row) … i am just glad that my camera survived without any damage.

The concept of Hadaka festivals originated in Okayama (the Saidaiji Eyo Hadaka Matsuri) which every years draws more then 10’000 men participating in the event. That said, this festivals in Ogaki was on a much smaller level but never got boring either. It also draws a lot less people (or maybe that was just because of the weather?!) which is always a good thing if you actually try to move around and get some pictures shot rather then wasting time stuck somewhere in the 3rd row behind a crowd.

Transport: 15 minute walk from Yoro Railroad Tomoe Station. Or, take the Meihan Kintetsu bus from JR Ogaki Station to “Noguchi” bus stop. There is plenty of parking space available on the other side of the river should you intend to come by car.

Website: There is some simple website from the Ogaki Festival Committee (all in Japanese) available, but other than that it’s kind of hard to find lot’s of information about it anywhere.