The Sound Arrives Before the Color
You hear the bamboo first. Not the rustle of leaves — the dry clatter of paper strips catching wind, hundreds of them, tied to branches set up outside a convenience store at the mouth of a shopping arcade. It is early July in Sendai, and someone has already written their wish in blue marker on a pink slip: ‘I want my cat to live forever.’
Tanabata — Japan’s Star Festival — is one of those celebrations that sneaks up on you. There is no single explosive moment, no portable shrine shouldered through streets. Instead, the country slowly fills with bamboo and colored paper across several weeks of summer, peaking in different cities on different dates. Getting the timing right matters more here than with almost any other Japanese festival.
Two Stars, One River, a Lot of Baggage
The story behind Tanabata traveled from China centuries ago and settled comfortably into Japanese tradition. Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair), separated by the Milky Way — called the Amanogawa in Japanese, which literally means ‘heavenly river’ — get to meet once a year on the seventh night of the seventh month. The condition: clear skies. Rain means no bridge, no reunion, wait another year.
The original Chinese version, the Japanese retelling, and the Korean Chilseok all differ in details. The Japanese version emphasizes the weaving — Orihime was apparently so good at making cloth that she never took a break until she fell in love and stopped working entirely. Her father’s punishment feels a bit harsh by modern standards, but the once-a-year reunion has given the festival its romantic weight.
Whether anyone actually looks up at Vega and Altair on July 7 is another question. In most of urban Japan, light pollution makes the Milky Way invisible. But the story persists, and that is probably enough.
Writing Wishes on Paper Strips
The part of Tanabata that visitors can actually participate in is the tanzaku tradition — writing a wish on a small colored strip of paper and tying it to a bamboo branch. The bamboo goes up outside shops, train stations, temples, and apartment lobbies starting around late June.
The wishes are earnest. ‘Pass the entrance exam.’ ‘Get a raise.’ ‘Meet someone nice.’ Occasionally you find one that is oddly specific — ‘I want to eat tonkotsu ramen in Fukuoka before September’ — and those are the ones you remember.
Department stores and shopping streets set up public bamboo with markers and paper strips. The pens are sometimes dried out, so bringing your own is genuinely practical advice, not fussy. Write something, tie it on, and move along. There is no ceremony to it, which is part of the appeal.
July 7 vs. August: This Matters More Than You Think
Here is the thing that trips up most visitors: Tanabata is not one festival. It is dozens of festivals happening on two different calendar systems across different cities.
July 7 celebrations follow the Gregorian calendar. Tokyo, Kyoto, and most of Kansai celebrate on this date. The events tend to be neighborhood-scale — shrine visits, small evening gatherings, bamboo outside local shops. Nice, but not spectacular. July 7 also falls squarely in tsuyu (rainy season) in many regions, so expect a decent chance of rain.
Late July and August celebrations follow the old lunar calendar, pushing the date roughly a month later. These are the big ones.
Sendai Tanabata (August 6-8) is the one most people mean when they say ‘Tanabata festival.’ The entire downtown shopping arcade fills with fukinagashi — enormous handmade streamers of washi paper and bamboo, some of them several meters long, created fresh each year by local businesses. Each one reportedly costs the equivalent of several thousand dollars. Over two million people visit across three days. The night before (August 5), there is a fireworks display over the Hirose River that effectively serves as the opening ceremony.
Getting to Sendai from Tokyo takes about 90 minutes by shinkansen, which makes day trips feasible. Hotels in the city sell out months ahead. If you are booking late, look at accommodation in Yamagata or Fukushima and train in. The Trip.com hotel search sometimes surfaces rooms that the big booking sites miss — worth checking if your usual platforms show nothing.
Hiratsuka Tanabata (early July) is the Kanto region’s biggest, drawing over a million visitors to a city southwest of Tokyo. Giant paper decorations arch over the main shopping street. It is crowded and loud and full of food stalls, which is either appealing or exhausting depending on your tolerance.
Asagaya Tanabata (early August) is smaller and weirder in the best way. The Pearl Center shopping arcade in western Tokyo fills with handmade papier-mâché figures — anime characters, animals, seasonal themes — made by local shopkeepers. Less polished than Sendai, more personal.
The Seven Decorations (Briefly)
Tanabata has seven traditional decoration types, each with assigned meaning: paper kimono (sewing skill), purses (money), paper cranes (longevity), nets (good catch), streamers (weaving), trash bags (cleanliness), and tanzaku (wishes). In practice, most public displays lean heavily on the streamers and tanzaku. The symbolic system exists, but it is not something most visitors — or honestly most Japanese people under 40 — spend much time thinking about.
What Could Go Wrong
Tanabata during rainy season is exactly what it sounds like. July 7 celebrations in Tokyo and Kyoto have a real chance of being rained out. The paper decorations do not love water. Some festivals have contingency plans; many do not.
Crowds at Sendai are serious. The main arcade becomes a slow shuffle, and getting food from the stalls means standing in line. Phone signal gets unreliable in the densest areas. If you are claustrophobic about crowds, early morning or the final evening (August 8) tends to be slightly thinner.
Accommodation in Sendai during festival week is a known problem. If you have not booked by May, you are probably looking at a day trip or staying in a neighboring prefecture. KKday sometimes packages Sendai Tanabata tours from Tokyo that handle transport and access — not cheap, but it removes the logistics headache.
The Practical Stuff
Yukata: Summer festivals are when you wear them. Rental and dressing services exist near every major festival site, typically costing a few thousand yen. Nobody will look at you twice — half the crowd is in yukata.
Timing: Most illuminated displays look best after sunset, roughly 7 PM onward. Arriving by late afternoon gives you daylight browsing followed by the evening atmosphere shift.
Getting around: For Sendai specifically, the JR East Shinkansen from Tokyo Station runs frequently. If you are doing multiple festival day trips, a KLOOK JR Pass might make financial sense — the Tokyo-Sendai round trip alone nearly covers the daily cost.
The rain question: If it rains on Tanabata night, tradition says the lovers cannot meet. People mention this with a mix of genuine sentimentality and self-aware humor. A rainy Tanabata is not ruined — the bamboo and streamers look different in the wet, and the crowds thin out, which is not entirely unwelcome.
After the Festival
The bamboo comes down quickly. By the morning after, city workers are already clearing the decorations, and the paper strips — thousands of wishes, some heartfelt, some silly, one about a cat — get bundled and removed. A few shrines burn them ritually. Most just get recycled.
I kept one of the dried-out markers from a public bamboo stand in Sendai once, not sure why. It is probably still in a jacket pocket somewhere.
