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Celebrate Matsue’s Samurai Spirit and Heritage

HOME > Japan’s Local Treasures > Celebrate Matsue’s Samurai Spirit and Heritage

 

Watch Matsue’s historic Musha Gyoretsu Warrior Parade and revel in the combination of cherry blossoms and samurai–era outfits

Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture

 

 

Every year on the first Saturday of April, the city of Matsue in Shimane Prefecture celebrates its samurai warrior heritage with the annual Musha Gyoretsu Samurai Warrior Parade. This parade is held during the Matsue Castle spring festival period (spanning late March through early April) to coincide with the area’s cherry blossom season.

This event celebrates the founding of Matsue as a castle town in 1600, when Horio Yoshiharu, a general, feudal lord, and head of the Horio clan, decided to establish a castle on the shores of Lake Shinji. The parade re-enacts the symbolic entrance of the Horio clan to the newly finished castle. 

Participants dress up as historic figures such as Horio Yoshiharu and move on foot through the streets while adorned in colorful samurai warrior armor and other period outfits. In addition to male and female warriors bearing an array of period weapons, there are also ladies in elegant kimonos and children playing traditional instruments, making the event a colorful and delightfully unusual spectacle.

The parade procession departs from Matsue Castle and proceeds through surrounding neighborhoods before returning to the castle entrance, where other festivities and performances take place.

 

How to get there

 

From Haneda Airport, fly to Yonago Airport (about 1 hour and 15 minutes), then take a direct shuttle bus to JR Matsue Station (about 45 minutes). Alternatively, fly from Haneda Airport to Izumo Airport (about 1 hour 25 minutes) and take a direct shuttle bus to JR Matsue Station (about 35 minutes). From Matsue Station, a 10-minute bus ride will take you to Matsue Castle, the starting point of the samurai procession.

 

1-5 Tonomachi, Matsue-shi, Shimane-ken

 

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