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The country goes home. Obon empties the cities and fills the trains heading to ancestral towns, while the ones that stay run on bon-odori in the local park and high school baseball on the TV in every soba shop. The heat is genuinely difficult — locals adapt with cold noodles, plain shaved ice, and not going outside between noon and three.
August 2026
Dates for 2026
August 6
Early-mid August · Festival
The national high school baseball tournament held at Hanshin Kōshien Stadium in Hyōgo. Single elimination from a pool of 49 regional champions, two weeks of midday-in-August games. Losing teams scoop up and pocket a handful of infield dirt — a tradition since 1937. The TV ratings during the final are still among the year's highest.
Aug 13-16 (most regions) · Tradition
The week ancestors are believed to return home. Families travel back to grandparents' towns, light mukaebi (welcome fires) on the 13th, clean and visit the family grave with flowers and incense, then send the spirits off with okuribi on the 16th. The mass migration is real — Shinkansen reserved seats book out months in advance, the Tōmei Expressway moves at walking pace, and the news shows the footage every year.
Mid-August evenings · Festival
Neighborhood summer dance held during Obon — a yagura (raised wooden platform) in the middle of the park with taiko drummers up top, locals in yukata circling outward, doing the same simple choreography for hours. Specific songs vary by region: Tōkyō Ondo in Tokyo, Kawachi Ondo in Osaka, Awa Odori in Tokushima at festival scale.
Early-mid August · Festival
The national high school baseball tournament held at Hanshin Kōshien Stadium in Hyōgo. Single elimination from a pool of 49 regional champions, two weeks of midday-in-August games. Losing teams scoop up and pocket a handful of infield dirt — a tradition since 1937. The TV ratings during the final are still among the year's highest.