The annual Arashiyama Momiji Matsuri, or Maple Leaf Festival, sponsored by the Arashiyama Hoshokai conservation society, was held on November 14. Events took place upstream of the Togetsu-kyo Bridge on the Ooi River in Arashiyama (Ukyo and Saikyo Wards, Kyoto), a location well-known for its autumn-leaf viewing. A large number of tourists enjoyed various Japanese traditional arts being performed aboard boats along the river, against the spectacular backdrop of the autumn leaves at their most vivid.

This festival, celebrated for the fifty-eighth time this year, is held to praise the beauty of the autumn foliage around Arashiyama, and to express gratitude to the god Arashiyama Zaou-Gongen, guardian of this area. A wide range of traditional art forms, such as Saga Dainenbutsu Kyogen plays, Imayo poem readings, Japanese harp music and flower arranging were performed upon twelve boats floating along the river. On the Kyoto Studio Park boat, actors dressed as Shinsengumi samurai boarded the vessel and showed their swordsmanship to the spectators.

According to Arashiyama Hoshokai, the peak of the foliage season this year came ten days earlier than usual. Holidaymakers watching from the river banks, old-fashioned houseboats, or regular boats, fully enjoyed the various performances on the boats going back and forth across the water’s surface.