Kasuga Wakamiya Onmatsuri Festival

Take the JR Yamatoji Line from Osaka Station, and get off at Nara Station, or take the Kintetsu Nara Line from Osaka-Namba Station, and get off at Kintetsu-Nara Station, then take a Nara Kotsu Bus (bound for Kasuga Taisha Honden) and get off at the Kasuga Taisha Honden bus stop

Kasuga Wakamiya Onmatsuri Festival is held in the vicinity of Nara Park over several days in December every year, primarily on December 17 as a festival for Kasuga Taisha Grand Shrine’s auxiliary Wakamiya Shrine in Nara City, Nara Prefecture. The festival has been held every year without fail for more than 880 years. At the Onmatsuri Festival, votive entertainment in the form of sarugaku (a noh performance), traditional gagaku court music, sacred kagura performances, and bugaku courtly performances, plays a major role in the continuation and preservation of the Japanese performing arts prior to the Middle Ages. The festival ceremony takes place over a 24-hour period, and involves both the senko no gi (welcoming and departure of the deity enshrined at Wakamiya Shrine) and the kanko no gi, where the deity is returned to the shrine. It starts at midnight on December 17 and ends at just before midnight on December 18. During the senko no gi and the kanko no gi, neither illumination of any kind nor photography and videography is permitted.