節分 (Setsubun)

On 3rd February, I attended a unique Japanese festival for the first time in my life: Setsubun. That day, spring officially starts and people throw beans to people wearing demon´s customs (oni). At the same time, everybody is supposed to sing a song whose translation would be: "Demons, go far away! Good luck, come home!" I took my part as oni and got badly hit by beans! ;)

Parallely, the festival is also quite official and every shrine in Japan celebrates it somehow. In Nezu jinja, the celebration consisted of people throwing presents to the participants. At the same time, the demons were gone. When they left to the shrine to pray, the demons went out and when the priests came back, the demons fleed again. That repeated for a couple times.

Some photos here: