Japan's 'Naked Men' Festival Ends: Is Population Crisis The Culprit?

A steam of sweat rose as a bag of wooden talismans was tussled over by hundreds of naked men, marking a dramatic end to a thousand-year-old ritual in Japan that was taking place for the last time.

Their passionate chants of "jasso, joyasa" (meaning "evil, be gone") were echoed through a cedar forest of northern Japan's Iwate region, where the secluded Kokuseki Temple has decided to end the popular annual rite.

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Japan's 'Naked Men' Festival

The event, which draws hundreds of participants and thousands of tourists every year, has become a heavy burden for the ageing local faithful, who find it hard to keep up with the rigours of the ritual. The "Sominsai" festival, regarded as one of the strangest festivals in Japan, is the latest tradition impacted by the country's ageing population crisis that has hit rural communities hard.

"It is complicated to organise a festival of this scale," said Daigo Fujinami, a resident monk of the temple that opened in 729. "You can see what happened today -- so many people are here and it's all exciting. But behind the scenes, there are many rituals and so much work that have to be done," he said. "I cannot be blind to the difficult reality," as reported by AFP.

Japan's society has aged more rapidly than most other countries. The trend has forced countless schools, shops, and services to close, particularly in small or rural communities. During the Covid pandemic, the festival was scaled down to prayer ceremonies and smaller rituals. The final festival was a shortened version, ending around 11:00 pm, but local residents said it drew the biggest crowd in recent memory.

As the festival climaxed, hundreds of men packed inside the wooden temple shouting, chanting, and aggressively jostling over a bag of talismans. Toshiaki Kikuchi, a resident who claimed the talismans and who helped organise the festival for years, said he hoped the ritual would return in the future. "Even under a different format, I hope to maintain this tradition," he said after the festival.

Many participants and visitors voiced both sadness and understanding about the festival's ending. "This is the last of this great festival that has lasted 1,000 years. I wanted to participate in this festival," Yasuo Nishimura, 49, a caregiver from Osaka, told AFP.

From next year, Kokuseki Temple will replace the festival with prayer ceremonies and other ways to continue its spiritual practices. "Japan is facing a falling birthrate, ageing population, and lack of young people to continue various things," Nishimura said. "Perhaps it is difficult to continue the same way as in the past."