Things to do in Tokyo this week

Legend tells of the star-crossed lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi who, separated by the Milky Way, are only able to meet once a year on the night known as Tanabata. This festival is synonymous with colourful streamer decorations, wafts of romance, and a ritual in which people write wishes on strips of paper (tanzaku) and tie them to bamboo branches.

Zojoji's version of the celebration features a beautiful candle light-up from 6pm to 9pm. Hundreds of washi paper lanterns are arranged in the shape of the Milky Way along the staircase that leads up to the temple’s main hall.

Make sure to write down your wish for Tanabata on a colourful strip of paper, which you can get for ¥100 each. The temple priests will conduct a special ceremony at 5.30pm, where they’ll bless your wishes. Can’t make it to the event? You can still follow the proceedings online.

For this special occasion, Zojoji Temple is selling a beautiful Tanabata-themed omamori lucky charm (¥3,000). As the quantity is limited, we recommend buying it in advance via the temple’s online shop. When you’re making the purchase, don’t forget to write your name in the column for additional notes as the priests will read out your name at a special prayer on the night of July 7. The omamori will be shipped after the event (from July 8).

The event takes place from 9am to 9pm. For more information, see the event website.

Tanabata, the festival that celebrates the star-crossed lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi, takes place across Japan in early July. You'll find one of Tokyo's longest-running incarnations of this event in the western town of Fussa. While other such festivals tend to be fairly low-key affairs, this one (now into its 70th year) is packed with events, including a 'Princess Orihime contest’ and a performance by the US Air Force band on Saturday, as well as comedy shows and a samba dance on Sunday. There will also be plenty of irresistible food stalls set up around Fussa Station.

The highly-anticipated Tokyo Gendai art fair is set to debut at Pacifico Yokohama this summer. It takes place from July 7 to 9 (with a VIP preview on July 6) and will welcome over 70 leading galleries from around Japan, Asia Pacific, Europe and the US. The theme is 'Contemporary' with an emphasis on showcasing works of contemporary art from world-renowned and emerging artists.

Tokyo Gendai is divided into four main sections. In Galleries, you'll find major galleries from Japan and abroad, while Hana (flower) has artworks exhibited under the fair's theme of ‘Contemporary’. The Eda (branch) section will highlight cutting-edge artists, and Tane (seed) showcases works by up-and-coming talents.

Look forward to browsing a range of international and domestic galleries, including Blum & Poe (Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo) who will be showcasing works by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. Sadie Coles HQ (London), meanwhile, is presenting British artist Sarah Lucas, Scai The Bathhouse (Tokyo) has an installation by Kohei Nawa, and Taka Ishii Gallery (Tokyo, Hong Kong) is sharing works from Oscar Murillo, Adam Pendleton and Jadé Fadojutimi. To see the full list of galleries showcasing at Tokyo Gendai, visit here.

Time Out Tokyo is proud to be a media partner with Tokyo Gendai and will be offering discounted tickets leading up to the fair.

• From now until June 10, you can purchase pre-release admission tickets for two people for ¥4,250
• Advance ticket sales will be open from June 11 to July 5 for ¥2,550
• Tickets for Vernissage (opening night) on July 6 are available from June 11 for ¥6,800 (this will also include a single entry ticket for July 7)
• One-day admission from July 6 costs ¥3,400 and ¥2,125 for students (children aged 12 and under are free)

To get your tickets, visit here.

Already bustling Shibuya is becoming even livelier with a free outdoor music festival on July 9. There will be 15 stages set up across the neighbourhood for this annual event, featuring local artists from across various genres. Enjoy rock and pop bands at Hachiko Square, acoustic guitar at Shibuya Station east exit underground plaza, jazz at the Jinnan Elementary School gymnasium, acapella chorus in front of Shibuya Modi and much more.

One of the major parts of the festival takes place from 10.30am to 11am, when 250 people will be parading from Miyashita Park along Jingu-dori to Shibuya Scramble Crossing and Meiji-dori street. At around 5pm, make sure to visit the Miyashita Park rooftop for a massive jam session to bring the festival to a close.

Friday Road Show is a long-running weekly TV segment that began in 1985, where full-length, family-friendly films are broadcast every Friday evening on Nippon TV (NTV). The broadcasting network has a strong relationship with Studio Ghibli, as the channel has featured the illustrious anime studio's films over 200 times in the decades since Hayao Miyazaki released his first feature, 'Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind' (1984). 

In this joint exhibition between NTV and Studio Ghibli, anime fans can revel in the magic of the animation studio through Takayuki Takeya's sculptures of the creatures seen in Studio Ghibli's debut film, the studio's stained glass mirror lantern, and other mesmerising installations. 

This Tokyo exhibition will open at Terada Warehouse on June 29 and run through September 24 before reopening at the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design on October 8 2023.

Hydrangeas, also known as ajisai in Japanese, are commonly associated with the onset of the rainy season – just like cherry blossoms are with spring. Their vivid blue, purple, pink, or even snow-white colours make them instantly identifiable and enliven those dreary, wet days of the rainy season, which usually hits Tokyo from June to July. A popular legend even says that finding a snail on a hydrangea is a sign of good fortune. 

Every year, you can spot these charming flowers throughout Tokyo, with bushes blooming in some of the city's best parks such as Ueno Park, temples like Takahata Fudoson and even as far out as Fuchu in the west of the city. So grab your umbrella and head to these spots to see the most beautiful hydrangeas in Tokyo.

June brings with it the chance to get out in the fields and watch nature at play. Firefly (or hotaru in Japanese) season is upon us, and while it's true that Tokyo is rather limited in the field department these days, there are still some great spots to see these homegrown fireworks.

Check out our top picks of hotaru-watching events in central Tokyo, way out in the western suburbs, and even in neighbouring Chiba prefecture.

Take your kids to this outdoor water play area at the Sagamiko Resort Pleasure Forest amusement park. Kids up to primary school age can enjoy seven inflatable wading pools shaped as elephants, crocodiles, giraffes and other fun animals. Most of the pools even feature slides, with the biggest one measuring 15-metres in length and can be used by up to six kids at the same time. Smaller children will love the elephant pool that comes with a water fountain sprouting from the elephant’s trunk.

Open from June 24 to August 27 (Sat only from Jun 24-Jul 21).

Hilton Tokyo is teaming up with Sanrio for an adorable Hello Kitty-inspired dessert buffet at the hotel's first floor Marble Lounge. During the event, the restaurant's interior will be transformed into an art gallery of artistic Hello Kitty designs to go along with the delicious food on offer. Led by executive pastry chef Osamu Harita, this dessert buffet features 25 sweet desserts and nine savoury items inspired by Hello Kitty. 

Look forward to tasting desserts crafted with seasonal fruits including the tropical fruit tart, melon shortcake and lemon coffee tiramisu. To add to the cuteness, don’t miss the signature 'Hello Kitty & Her Floral Ribbon' cake, a cheese mousse dessert shaped as Hello Kitty's head and topped with a sweet berry compote. As for savoury bites, enjoy a range of refreshing salads including classic caesar, Greek-style orzo pasta and a salad with grilled peaches and pecans. 

In line with the modern art theme, the buffet will also showcase artworks by Hiro Sugiyama of Enlightenment, who has created original artworks featuring Hello Kitty through various colourful palettes and collages.

To make a reservation, visit the website.

Take advantage of the warm weather with an evening at Hilton Tokyo’s Beer Garden in the Sky. The gorgeous open-air Californian-style terrace and bar is tucked away on the hotel's seventh floor and offers stunning views of the Shinjuku skyline. 

A great option is the beer garden plan, which includes all-you-can-drink draft beer, wine and soft drinks as well as unlimited bites from the chef's signature surf and turf platter for 90 minutes. You can also order off the separate a la carte menu for more food and drink options. A la carte dishes include nachos, a chef’s cobb salad, avocado toast topped with crabmeat and a refreshing poke bowl with tuna, salmon and octopus. As for a la carte drinks, take your pick from Asahi Super Dry beer, Brewdog Punk IPA, organic mojito or Chandon garden spritz.

Head on over on Friday and Saturday evenings to catch live music with a band performing 1980s rock songs on the terrace. 

To make a reservation, visit the website.

As the weather warms up, bars, hotels and even department stores in Tokyo are opening their roofs and terraces to the public – and with this, the beer garden season officially begins. As we say every year, it just wouldn't be spring and summer without an evening spent idly sipping frosty pints or cool cocktails out in the open air. 

But how do you, the discerning drinker, find the most attractive deals among the myriad of beer events and festivals out there? Fret not; we’ve done the leg work for you, so go ahead and choose from our list here.

Tokyo Tower's alternative to the ubiquitous summer beer gardens is welcoming the outdoor drinking season with a double dose of whisky highballs. Head to the terrace at the base of the tower for a lengthy menu of highballs combined with a variety of drinking snacks (think karaage and grilled bacon).

There's also a meatier option on the roof of the Tower Foot Town building. The Tokyo Tower Rooftop Highball Garden serves up all-you-can-eat jingisukan, the Hokkaido-born lamb barbecue named after the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan.

Two hours of all-you-can-drink alcohol and limitless jingisukan can be had for ¥5,500 (teens aged 13-19 ¥3,500, primary school students ¥2,500, children aged 4-6 ¥1,500, all with non-alcoholic drinks, of course).

Just keep an eye on the weather forecast, as both terraces close in the case of heavy rain.

The Tokyo Tower Cho-Ten Highball Garden at the base of the tower is open until October 1, from 4pm-10pm on weekdays and 12noon-10pm on Sat, Sun & holidays.

The Tokyo Tower Rooftop Highball Garden is open until October 9, from 5pm-9.30pm daily. Make your reservations here.

Set within 360-degree digital dome theatres, Konica Minolta Planetaria provides a retreat from the bustling streets of Tokyo, inviting visitors to revel in a starlit universe. However, it's not only constellations that come alive on these dome ceilings. 

This summer, from June 26 until July 5, the Yurakucho planetarium will pay homage to the monumental rock band, Pink Floyd, with a 42-minute projection show centred on the band’s 1073 album ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’. The album 'The Dark Side Of The Moon', famously launched with a press event at the London Planetarium in 1973, paired music with visuals of stars, constellations, and space projected onto the dome. 

50 years on, you can revel in the power of the album’s ten tracks accompanied by visuals of stars, spaceships, and otherworldly landscapes. Prepare for a transcendental two-dimensional encounter, and rediscover the timeless masterpiece that has sold over 50 million copies worldwide.

Sondheim and Bernstein's iconic Broadway musical 'West Side Story' is returning to Shibuya’s Tokyu Theatre Orb with an international cast for the first time since 2012. Inspired by the Shakespearean story of Romeo and Juliet and set in mid-1950s New York, ‘West Side Story’ is considered one of the most riveting musicals of our time and continues to be celebrated decades after its debut in 1957.

Featuring the original choreography of Jerome Robbins, this production stars Jadon Webster and Melanie Sierra as Tony and Maria, who fall in love with each other despite the ongoing feud between their respective communities.  The show will be performed entirely in English with live accompaniment from a band. Subtitles will be provided so Japanese audiences can fully immerse themselves in the story's poignant themes of love, rivalry, and tragedy.

After a hugely successful launch in North America at the end of 2022, Lighthouse Immersive's Disney Animation exhibition is coming to the Mori Arts Center Gallery this April. This 2023 event coincides with Disney's 100th anniversary and invites fans of all ages to celebrate the momentous milestone by revisiting the animation studio's most popular films from the past few decades.

With 360-degree projections in each gallery space, you'll be able to step inside iconic movie scenes from 'The Lion King', 'Moana', 'Frozen' and 'Tangled', with the accompaniment of Disney's hit soundtracks. Just be sure to book your tickets early, as no one takes Disney more seriously than Tokyoites.

Step into the fantastical world of Yayoi Kusama at her latest exhibition at the Yayoi Kusama Museum in Shinjuku. Kusama's art, famous for its obsessive repetition of a single motif, blurs the line between self and other - a concept she calls 'self-obliteration'. This signature theme of hers is born from her childhood hallucinations and can draw viewers into a dreamlike state.

This exhibition provides a unique exploration into Kusama's artistry across different periods, with a focus on the psychedelic aspects – a tribute to America's 1960s psychedelic movement. Installations include a new hexagonal Mirror Rooms, from a series which she first introduced in a solo exhibition in New York in the late 1960s. 

Visitors can also expect to see Kusama's early drawings, where she graphically depicted her innermost images. Works from her later years after her return to Japan are also displayed, including vivid acrylic paintings, large-scale 3D works, and an installation using a black light. A visual feast that captures Kusama's journey of self-obliteration, visitors are invited to immerse themselves in her entrancing world.

Immerse yourself in a captivating artistic journey that transverses epochs and continents, from ancient Greece to Ueno Park in Tokyo. At this dynamic exhibition, expect to encounter a grand collection of approximately 150 works showcasing the unique talent and creativity of 19 artists. Featured luminaries include Andy Warhol, Niki de Saint Phalle, René François Ghislain Magritte, Nam Jun Paik, Yoko Ono, David Hockney, and Tsuyoshi Ozawa. 

A standout piece is Motohiko Odani's Surf Angel (Provisional Monument 2), created for the Reborn Art Festival 2021-22 in Ishinomaki city. This imposing 6-meter tall sculpture balances gracefully on a wave, facing the wind. Adorned in attire evocative of the famous Nike of Samothrace statue, the angel with its geometric Makaba head signifies a portal to another dimension, representing an intriguing synthesis of vulnerability and strength.

Also on display is Nam June Paik's Robot K-567, a relative of the world's first art robot, Robot K-456, alongside Fabrice Hyber's L'Homme de Bessines, a peculiar fountain that showers water from its 11 body holes and has over 100 clones worldwide.

Taking to heart Nam June Paik's philosophy that human activity thrives on expansion and fluidity while conserving energy – a concept embodied in 'play' – this exhibition challenges the next generation to foster this ethos.

Henri Matisse’s (1869–1954) final years were full of turmoil. Following a separation from his wife and the outbreak of World War II, the French artist was diagnosed with intestinal cancer, which caused him to be bedridden for months at a time. And yet, Matisse never surrendered his art to the distressing circumstances at hand. 

When given the opportunity to flee from France to Brazil amid the Nazi invasion, Matisse ultimately refused to abandon his studio in Nice. When surgery to treat his cancer left him too weak to paint on canvases, he directed his assistants as they blended pigments by his bedside and ‘painted’ with paper-cut outs instead. All the while, Matisse continued to lead the Fauvism movement with his use of striking colours in his still lifes and portraits of female figures that depicted a world far more vibrant than the one around him. 

Needless to say, Matisse is regarded as one of the most important artists of the 20th century and a handful of his works are often found at exhibitions in Tokyo every year. This upcoming showcase at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, however, is a particularly momentous event as it is the first large-scale Matisse retrospective Japan has seen in almost 20 years. 

The majority of the works are borrowed from the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which boasts one of the world’s biggest Matisse collections. The roughly 150 works on display range from early oil paintings to sculptures and cut-outs that defined the artist’s self-proclaimed ‘second life’. 

From the 1904 painting ‘Luxe, Calm et Volupté’, which is recognised as Matisse’s official foray into Fauvism, to the drafts used to build The Rosary Chapel, his final masterpiece, this showcase is an exhilarating celebration of the artist's extraordinary spirit and passion for colour.

Mori Art Museum in Roppongi Hills is celebrating its 20th anniversary by inviting us all to go back to school. But this exhibition is sure to be more interesting than your old school classes as the teachers will be some of the world's most influential contemporary artists.

Just as the name suggests, this exhibition uses school subjects as a gateway to discovering contemporary art. There are eight different sections themed on school subjects such as mathematics, science and music. You’ll be able to see 150 artworks, half of which are drawn from the Mori Art Museum Collection. The exhibition also includes newly-commissioned works from 54 artists.

Some highlights include works by Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei, American conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth and Japanese sculptor Tatsuo Miyajima. One of the most fitting pieces, however, is the blackboard written on by German artist Joseph Beuys during a lecture he gave at Tokyo University of the Arts in 1984.

The scale and depth of this exhibition is extensive, so we recommend checking the website to see the full list of artists and artworks. You can buy tickets here.

Experience the exquisite fusion of Eastern and Western art at the Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Harajuku, with a compelling exhibition showcasing 162 shin-hanga woodblock prints by French artist, Paul Jacoulet (1896-1960). Though he was born and raised in Paris, Jacoulet was drawn to the Japanese art form at a young age and honed his skills in traditional Japanese painting and ukiyo-e woodblock art, showing an extraordinary depth of understanding and appreciation for Japanese aesthetics.

Shin-hanga, translated as 'new prints', emerged in Japan between the Taisho (1912-1926) and Showa (1926-1989) eras as an innovative art movement that brought together artists, carvers and printers in collaborative craftsmanship. It was both a revival and modernisation of ukiyo-e, an art genre that had flourished during the Edo period (1603-1868) but was dwindling due to Westernisation. 

In this exhibition, Jacoulet's talent shines as he creates vibrant portrayals of people from countries and regions, including Micronesia, Japan, Korea and China. Each print is a testament to Jacoulet's sensitivity to cultural nuances and his deep affection for the regions he portrayed. 

Psychiatrist Ryutaro Takahashi is one of Japan’s most prominent contemporary art collectors, with over 3,000 pieces in his collection. You can explore his collection during this exhibition at Warehouse Terrada's What Museum, which features a diverse range of contemporary art from the likes of Keizaburo Okamura, Tomoko Konoike, Kishio Suga, Akira Yamaguchi and many more.

Look out for large-scale installations by Hiroshi Sugimoto and artworks from the influential Mono-ha Japanese and Korean movement of the late 1960s and ‘70s, including pieces by Lee Ufan and Nobuo Sekine. About 20 of the artworks will also be exhibited for the very first time, such as a video by Japanese artist Tabaimo and sculptures by Motohiko Odan.