How Japan fell in love with Halloween

I am not surprised to read this article about Japan’s growing popularity of Halloween. Japan has adopted other western cultures to fit their culture and the lifestyle of people. For example, Christmas is all about KFC (!) and romance..and department stores are full of men trying to buy nice gifts for their significant others and it is considered one of the most romantic day of a year.

And it’s profitable for the business..Japan is all about business, so they ended up creating so called “White day”..on March 14, boys are supposed to give something back to the girls who gave them chocolate on the Valentine’s day..

And now Halloween..I can understand why this tradition is quickly catching the attention of club promoters and adults because people who go clubbing are into cosplay (costume play).

Tokyo (MarketWatch)- Until only recently, Japan never celebrated Halloween. And why would it? The nation honors the spirits of its ancestors in August, during the ancient Buddhist festival of O-bon, when ancestral spirits are said to revisit the family altars-and when reported encounters with ghosts and spirits reach a fevered peak.

But over the past decade, Tokyo in particular has come to embrace Halloween. Or at least the grown-ups have: While there’s no such thing as “trick or treating” for the kids, adults in every larger numbers pull out all the stops when it comes to innovative costumes, lavish club events and all of the escapism that goes along with it.

And it’s not just one or two nights at the end of the month. No, in the nation’s capital, the creep of costumed revelers on the streets starts as early as the first weekend in October, much to the delight of bar and club owners. the parties peak on the Fridays and Saturdays before Halloween, but the clubs, bars and promoters will keep greasing the wheel until the first weekend of November if it’s at all feasible. A quick look at Tokyo’s iFlyer and Clubberia websites (the online event engines crucial to Tokyo’s nightlife) shows 52 major events on Oct. 25 alone..

“Just as with many other non-native cultural traditions and holidays, such as Christmas and Valentine’s Day, the Japanese have adopted Halloween in their own way and in a way that suits their culture,” says Anthony Block, a senior manager at Kyodo Public Relations Co.