Tofugu’s Halloween Week

by 21 Comments

Photo by Orr Marshall

Welcome to Tofugu’s first-ever Halloween week! With Halloween only about a week away, we thought we’d treat you guys with seven days of posts about scary, spooky, and creepy Japan-related things.

Halloween was originally a European holiday, with roots in Irish and Roman traditions. Over time though, the original meaning of the Halloween has been transformed from honoring the dead and celebrating autumn to dressing up and getting tons of candy from strangers.

So as you might imagine as a European holiday, Halloween isn’t really celebrated all that much in Japan. Generally, there’s no trick-or-treating (although Japanese people might be polite enough to give you candy anyway), there aren’t really a whole lot of costumes or anything like that. Usually only Japanese university students do any sort of celebrating, and even then it’s pretty limited.

“So Hashi,” you might be asking, “If Halloween isn’t a big deal in Japan, why are you writing about it?” Well disembodied voice, that’s an excellent question.

We here at Tofugu are based in the United States, and celebrating Halloween is as American as apple pie. We wanted to do something to celebrate Halloween on Tofugu, and what better way than combining celebrating Halloween with our love of Japan? And secondly, theme weeks are awesome, and we don’t get to do them often.

So keep an eye out this week for posts about terrifying J-Horror movies, swarms of killer bees, deadly robots, and all things spooky, scary, and creepy.

Oh, and if you want to keep track, we’ll be adding all of them to the scary tag here, so you can just check out that tag and see them all (especially if it’s not today, because today we only have this post up).

P.S. What do you want to see in Tofugu’s Halloween Week? Let us know on Twitter.
P.P.S. Can’t wait for Tofugu’s Arbor Day Week? Like us on Facebook.

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  • Vincent

    Do you guys still dress up for Halloween? I haven’t done it since middle school

  • Willian Pestana

    Those hiragana characters in the pumpkins means something?

  • Anonymous

    It’s a face made from Hiragana. It doesn’t mean anything.

  • http://www.tofugu.com/ Hashi

    Only if I’m going to a party or something.

  • http://www.tofugu.com/ Hashi

    Nope, it’s just henohenomoheji

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henohenomoheji

  • Sergiu Tot

    I love your pumpkins :D

  • amyous

    Aw man. I was going to say I want to see all you guys dress up.

  • Guest

    All the people at my college (in Japan) are going to Halloween parties and dressing up – which is pretty much all the people at my American college do as well.  Not too far off, I’d say.

  • http://twitter.com/Ball_Tazer The Ball Tazer

    so do the Japanese have their own holiday to honor their dead? 

  • Anonymouse

    Yes, Halloween is very american isn’t it? Not at all related to that Gaelic Samhain festival, right?

    While i’m on that topic, Apple Pies predate the settling of the thirteen colonies aswell… Just saying…

  • Foozlesprite

    I’d love to see a post this week about the names of various spooky things in Japanese!  I know ghosts are yuurei, but that’s about it.  Or possibly a post clarifying the differences between oni, youkai, ayakashi, shinigami, and all the other types of Japanese spirits.  Either way I’m excited to see what you guys come up with!

  • http://hanlonsrzr.blogspot.com Mr.S.

    Have you ever been asked to a ‘heroin party’ before?  It sure sounded like that to me when asked.

  • http://hanlonsrzr.blogspot.com Mr.S.

    Have you ever been asked to a ‘heroin party’ before?  It sure sounded like that to me when asked.

  • http://profiles.google.com/jonadab.theunsightlyone Jonadab the Unsightly One

    I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you’re not a troll, just a European who has somehow avoided ever previously being exposed to the idiom in question, perhaps by never reading anything in English on the internet until yesterday.

    The phrase “as American as apple pie” refers to whether a particular position or activity is universally popular in America.  (Apple pie, at one time, was the most popular favorite dessert in America.  These days I think it’d be brownies, but the idiom dates from the nineteenth or early twentieth century.  In any case, it’s still hard to find an American who strongly dislikes apple pie.)  

    Compare also “mom and Apple pie” — political statements that absolutely everyone agrees with, which politicians love to talk about even though there’s not really any serious debate about them.  The two idioms, although markedly different in usage today, were originally one:  ”as American as motherhood and apple pie”.  Obviously nobody thought motherhood _originated_ in America, but where it originated is completely irrelevant.  The point is that Americans are (or were at that time in any event) all in favor of it.

  • chcgann

    So if Halloween isn’t such a big deal in Japan, why am I seeing Halloween promotions EVERYWHERE here in Tokyo area? Godiva sales people with witch hats, Halloween sales, pumpkin bagels, etc. If it’s fun and a way to celebrate and have fun the Japanese seem to adopt it.

  • Zabaka02

    Wasn’t there some sort of party that happen on a train in Japan during Halloween? I think it was shut down b/c of how disruptive it was to the other passengers.

  • Guest

    In Japan, we have “obon” which is around August 15th – however it’s more like to honor the spirits of our ancestors than to honor our dead…

  • http://www.tofugu.com/ Hashi

    Not mine, but boy do I wish they were!

  • http://www.tofugu.com/ Hashi

    I did mention that Halloween had European roots, but it’s definitely become a much different tradition in the United States.

  • Zeldaskitten

    If you could share any awesome Japanese Halloween music, that would be sweeeeet

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    I’m not sure that exists :/ But, I don’t know much about music, either. Halloween’s not that huge in Japan :(