Tenjin Matsuri

The 24th is the opening day: rituals at Osaka Tenmangu, the shrine to Sugawara no Michizane that the whole festival belongs to, and a smaller set of processions. Worth seeing if you are here, not worth arranging a trip around.

The 25th is the festival. From 15:30 the land procession leaves the shrine: around three thousand people in Heian-period costume, portable shrines, drummers on raised platforms, and the danjiri carts, working north through the streets around Tenjinbashi.

In the evening the procession reaches the river and becomes the funatogyo, the boat procession: around a hundred lit vessels on the Okawa, carrying the deity, the drummers and the shrine parties, moving up and down the water and exchanging greetings between crews as they pass. Then roughly ninety minutes of fireworks over the same stretch, with the lit boats still on the water underneath them. That combination – fire above, lanterns below, both reflected – is what the festival is famous for and it is genuinely unlike anything else in Japan.

The riverbanks along the Okawa between Tenmabashi and Sakuranomiya are the free viewing ground, and they are full. Paid seating is sold and is not necessary; what is necessary is arriving early, which for a good free position on the bank means late afternoon, before the land procession finishes.

It is late July in Osaka, which means around 33 degrees at six in the evening with very high humidity and no meaningful drop after dark. Carry more water than you think you need, take a fan, and do not plan to stand for six hours without a break. The convenience stores within a kilometre of the river will be stripped by early evening.

Getting out afterwards is the hard part. A hundred thousand people leave the riverbank within about thirty minutes of the last firework and the nearby stations queue accordingly. Walking twenty minutes to a station further out is faster than waiting at the nearest one, and walking back to Umeda is entirely possible from the western end of the bank.

Hotels in Osaka for 24 and 25 July book out and price up, and the accommodation tax applies on top of whatever you pay. Book early, and remember that Kyoto’s Gion Matsuri runs through the same month, which puts pressure on the whole of Kansai’s July accommodation.

One practical knock-on: the Tombori River Cruise is suspended on 24 and 25 July because the city’s river traffic is given over to the festival. If those are your only two days in Osaka, that is a trade you should be delighted with.

The shrine itself, Osaka Tenmangu, sits just off Tenjinbashisuji, the covered arcade that runs two and a half kilometres north and is worth walking on any day of the year – it is also where Harukoma is, closed Tuesdays.