Yokai Night Parade 百鬼夜行

王子 狐の行列 · Festival · Kita (Ōji), Tokyo

Ōji Fox Parade

On New Year's Eve a procession in fox masks walks from the shrine of the changing tree to Ōji Inari, as the foxes did in Hiroshige's print.

Quick Facts

Type
Festival
Prefecture
Tokyo · Kita (Ōji)
When
New Year's Eve, from late evening into the first hour of the new year
Where
From Shōzoku Inari to Ōji Inari, Kita, Tokyo
Nearest station
Ōji Station (JR Keihin-Tōhoku Line, Tokyo Metro Namboku Line)
From the station
Shōzoku Inari is three minutes from the station, Ōji Inari about six
English signage
some
Opening hours and admission
See the official site (external link) · information checked on 2026-11-03

Hours, admission and closing days change, and this site does not list them. The link goes to the place's own page, with the date we last checked it.

Walkers in fox masks with lanterns at the Ōji Fox Parade
Photo: Fred Cherrygarden, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (external link)

What is there

Just before midnight on New Year’s Eve a procession gathers at Shōzoku Inari, a small shrine a few streets from Ōji station, and walks by lantern light to Ōji Inari, the old head shrine of the Inari cult in the Kantō plain. The walkers wear fox masks and fox make-up over kimono, and the crowd along the route is several times their number. The parade was begun by local people in 1993 and has been held every year since; the procession itself is by application, the pavement is open to anyone. Ōji Inari, on its hillside, keeps a fox hole in the rock behind the hall, and Shōzoku Inari marks the place of the tree.

Why here

The print of 1857 shows foxes gathering under a great hackberry tree at Ōji on New Year’s Eve, each with a flame at its mouth, before they go up to the shrine; the farmers of the district read the coming year’s harvest from the number of the fires. The tree is gone and the small shrine stands where it grew. The parade is a modern rite built on that picture, and the article on the fox tells where the picture came from.

Yokai you will meet

  • Kitsune 狐 — The foxes of Hiroshige's New Year's Eve print, walked by people in masks from the changing tree to the shrine.

Getting there

Ōji Station (JR Keihin-Tōhoku Line, Tokyo Metro Namboku Line). Shōzoku Inari is three minutes from the station, Ōji Inari about six.

Sources and further reading

  1. Reliable secondary Oji Fox Parade (external link) GO TOKYO (Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau) English event page: the route from Shōzoku Inari to Ōji Inari on New Year's Eve.
  2. Database Shōzoku Inari Shrine (装束稲荷神社) (external link) Wikipedia (Japanese) The shrine on the site of the changing tree of Hiroshige's print, and the fox parade that has set out from it on New Year's Eve since 1993.
  3. Database Ōji Inari Shrine (王子稲荷神社) (external link) Wikipedia (Japanese) The shrine's standing as head Inari shrine of the Kantō region and the fox hole behind the hall.
  4. Museum New Year's Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Ōji (external link) The Metropolitan Museum of Art Museum record for Hiroshige's circa-1857 print and its distinct Ōji tradition of foxes, foxfire, Inari worship and harvest prediction.

Other places with these yokai

Other places in Tokyo

  • Oiwa Inari: Tamiya Shrine and Yōunji 於岩稲荷田宮神社・陽運寺 Shrine or temple Shinjuku (Yotsuya), Tokyo — Two small shrines facing each other across a lane in Yotsuya, on the ground where the Tamiya family lived and where the play put Oiwa's ghost.
  • Takaosan Yakuōin 高尾山薬王院 Shrine or temple Hachiōji, Tokyo — The temple on Mount Takao whose guardian deity is served by tengu, with the great and small tengu in bronze before its hall.
  • Kitarō Chaya 鬼太郎茶屋 Shop Chōfu, Tokyo — The yokai tea house of the town where Mizuki Shigeru lived for half a century, now on the shopping street by Chōfu station.