murmurSensoji Hagoita-Ichi (Battledore Fair)
Taito City · Sensoji Temple grounds, Asakusa
Dates and details can change. Always check the official website before you go.
Sensoji Temple · Last checked: Oct 10, 2026
Dates
Dates not confirmed
- 2026
- Dates have not been announced yet. Please check the official website.
- 2027
- Dates have not been announced yet. Please check the official website.
- Usual timing
- Usually mid December
- How the date is set
- Every year, December 17 – December 19
- Venue
- Sensoji Temple grounds, Asakusa
- City
- Taito City, Tokyo
About
For three days, December 17 to 19, Sensoji holds a year-end market where dozens of stalls sell hagoita, decorated paddles for the New Year game of battledore. When a customer buys one, the seller answers with a burst of rhythmic sanbon-jime clapping, a scene that belongs to Asakusa at year's end. Kannon's festival day falls on the eighteenth of every month, and the year's last one, December 18, known as Osame no Kannon, brings especially large crowds. In the Edo period, stalls selling New Year goods and lucky charms gathered to catch those crowds, and Sensoji's year-end market became the biggest in Edo, with shops reaching from Asakusabashi to Ueno. From around the end of the Edo period hagoita stalls multiplied, and together with the custom of presenting a paddle to a family with a newborn girl, the paddles became the market's main attraction.
Sources
- OfficialSensoji Temple www.senso-ji.jp
- OfficialGO TOKYO (Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau) www.gotokyo.org
Last checked: Oct 10, 2026. Event information is based on official announcements, but changes may not always be reflected here. Please check each official website for accurate details.
Other events this month
On the day, see what locals are murmuring on the murmur map
murmur is an app that shows short, anonymous posts on a map, right where they were written. On festival day, open the map around the venue and see what people nearby are saying.