Photo: ddio · CC BY-SA 2.0
Every 5 June, Agata Shrine holds its annual festival. Late that night all the streetlights and shrine lights are switched off, and the bonten, a sacred float made of paper, is carried through the dark until the early hours of 6 June. It is known locally as the "strange festival of the dark night".
Why it's unique
Japanese dictionaries name only two classic kurayami matsuri (darkness festivals): Ōkunitama Shrine in Fuchū, Tokyo, and this one. That makes it the darkness festival of Kyoto Prefecture, not of Japan.
It is a residents' festival with very little tourist-facing material. What you get is a town switching its lights off at midnight and performing around a paper float in the dark, ending with the float's strands split and handed out as charms.
Before you go
The timing catches people out: the evening stalls are not the festival. There are two bonten. The Uji Shrine otabisho bonten sets off around 23:00 behind a lion-head mikoshi. It stops to perform at the police station, in front of JR Uji station, and at the west end of Uji Bridge, reaching the bridge just before midnight.
Agata Shrine's own bonten does not parade. It performs in place at the T-junction in front of the shrine from about midnight, and that is the place to stand: the crowd is close and it feels like one event. The run ends with a three-clap from everyone, a lights-off, lights-on prayer inside the grounds and a sake toast just before 1:00. Then the white paper strands of the bonten are split and handed out as charms against evil. If you miss 5 June, the 5th of each month is the shrine's monthly festival day.
