Fukagawa Hachiman Festival — The Water-Splashing and the Memory of a Town

Heat, Sudden Rain, and Water Everywhere

On August 16, I visited the Fukagawa Hachiman Festival, the annual festival of Tomioka Hachimangu Shrine near Monzen-Nakacho Station. This year was the large-scale Honmatsuri, held once every three years.

The highlight was the final day, when more than 50 mikoshi of various sizes, representing neighborhood associations across Fukagawa, made their way through the streets. The mikoshi rose and fell to the powerful chants of the carriers.

And above all, what makes this festival special is the water.

Known as the “Water-Splashing Festival,” it is famous for the way water is poured over the mikoshi as they move through the streets. Shinto priests sprinkle purifying water, while huge amounts of water are sprayed from trucks, temporary platforms, and fire department hoses. People along the streets join in too, armed with buckets and even water guns.

The mikoshi carriers, and sometimes the spectators as well, are soaked in no time.

The weather was unstable that day, with sudden heavy showers pouring down from time to time. But as the rain mixed with the water being thrown from every direction, it became almost impossible to tell one from the other. The whole neighborhood seemed to be soaking wet and celebrating at the same time.

The intense water-splashing helps cool the carriers in the middle of summer and is also associated with purifying the sacred mikoshi and those carrying it. Yet the exact origins of this large-scale water-splashing tradition are not known.

It is thought to have gradually grown in scale and become established in the modern era. In any case, this wave of water and energy is what makes the Fukagawa Hachiman Festival unlike almost any other festival in Tokyo.

Why water?

If we look further into its roots, we eventually arrive at the history of Fukagawa itself.

Fukagawa — Part of Edo, Yet Somehow Apart from It

Katsushika Hokusai, Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa (c. 1830, public domain)

Today, Tokyo’s Koto Ward still has an administrative district called Fukagawa. But when people in Tokyo talk about “Fukagawa,” they often mean a much wider area.

Centered around Monzen-Nakacho, home to Tomioka Hachimangu and Naritasan Fukagawa Fudoson, the name Fukagawa has traditionally encompassed neighborhoods such as Kiyosumi-Shirakawa and Kiba, stretching across western Koto Ward.

Mannen Bridge today — the bridge depicted in Hokusai’s Under Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa.

Historically, this was a kind of frontier created as the enormous city of Edo expanded.

Before Tokugawa Ieyasu established the shogunate in Edo in 1603, this area around the mouth of the Sumida River was largely a poor fishing settlement surrounded by reeds and wetlands. As the city developed, land reclamation began. The name Fukagawa is said to have come from Fukagawa Hachirozaemon, a lumber merchant who helped develop the area at Ieyasu’s request.

Here, Fukagawa became part of Edo while also developing a sense of being somehow separate from it.

People of the time distinguished between the elevated areas where samurai residences stood, known as Yamanote, and the low-lying commercial districts on the eastern side of Edo, known as Shitamachi. But Fukagawa, across the Sumida River—then commonly called the Okawa—was neither quite one nor the other.

Even after Fukagawa had formally come under the shogunate’s administration as Edo expanded, historical records suggest that residents still described crossing the river toward the center of the city as “going to Edo.”

Eitai Bridge spans the Sumida River between Fukagawa and Nihombashi. A bridge was first built here in 1698, creating an important link between Fukagawa and the heart of Edo. Today, the bridge is also famous for its beautiful nighttime illumination.

Today, Fukagawa is often described as one of Tokyo’s quintessential downtown neighborhoods. But when you actually walk through the area, the word “Shitamachi” does not quite capture everything about it.

Fukagawa feels like Fukagawa.

A distinctive sense of place developed here on the other side of the river.

A Grid of Waterways — Life Shaped by Water

What once defined the landscape of Fukagawa was its extensive network of waterways.

As Edo expanded, Fukagawa became home to lumberyards such as Kiba, warehouses for storing goods, and many temples relocated here after the Great Fire of Meireki(1657). A network of waterways was dug through the area, functioning as major transportation routes for moving goods by boat.

People involved in water transport, craftsmen working with timber, and fishermen catching the abundant seafood of Edo Bay all lived and worked here.

Fukagawa flourished alongside the water. Around Tomioka Hachimangu, a lively temple-town culture also developed, with entertainment districts and a distinctive urban culture of its own.

Even Fukagawa-meshi, one of the neighborhood’s best-known dishes, reflects this history. Clams and green onions cooked together and served over rice were once a quick, hearty meal for fishermen and workers.

The Presence of Water Today

Today, many of Fukagawa’s smaller waterways have disappeared, filled in or covered over and turned into underground channels.

Yet when you walk through the neighborhood, you notice the flat, low-lying land, the grid-like streets, and the rivers and canals that still appear unexpectedly around corners.

The visible water may have become less common, but there is still something about Fukagawa that makes you feel the presence of water.

Almost like an invisible field of gravity.

A One-Day Waterfront Appears in the Streets

As the festival drew toward its end, the mikoshi began returning to their respective neighborhoods.

I casually followed one of them into a residential area.

Even after leaving the lively streets around the shrine, the water continued. People along the road sprayed the mikoshi with hoses and threw water from b

uckets, creating a warm atmosphere of celebration.

Then I noticed something beside the road.

There were small plastic pools, metal washbasins, and large plastic tubs everywhere.

Of course, they had been prepared for throwing water at the mikoshi.

But they were being used for something else, too.

The pools were filled with cold water, with canned drinks and watermelons cooling inside. Nearby, children were laughing and splashing water at one another.

And suddenly, it clicked.

Of course. This is the water’s edge.

In the old Fukagawa, waterways and canals were part of everyday life. People lived close to the water, gathered there to cool off, and used it in their daily lives.

Today, many of those waterways have disappeared through urban development. But once a year, on the day of the festival, plastic pools and buckets appear along the residential streets.

Could they be creating, for just one day, an artificial version of the waterways that once ran through this neighborhood?

Perhaps the water-splashing is not simply a way to cool down in the summer heat or an entertaining part of the festival.

Perhaps it is also a ritual that brings back, in a different form, the memory of a town that once lived so closely with water.

On streets built over former waterways, people create their own temporary water’s edge.

And perhaps, by doing so, they are reminding themselves that Fukagawa has always been a town shaped by water.

That is what the water-splashing looked like to me this year: not simply a spectacular festival tradition, but an expression of the identity that Fukagawa has carried with it for centuries.