What an Old Man in Yanaka Taught Me About Throwing Beans at Demons

Mamoru-san Keeps His Beans in a Wooden Box from 1962

Mamoru Takahashi is sixty-three years old and has been throwing beans at demons for as long as he can remember. He runs a small lacquerware repair shop in Yanaka — the kind of neighborhood that survived the firebombing and still looks it, in the best possible way — and on the morning I visited him in late January, he was already preparing. The wooden masu box he uses to hold his roasted soybeans had belonged to his father. It still smells faintly of cedar and old sake.

"My father said the beans don't work if you buy them at the convenience store," he told me, not looking up from the lacquer bowl he was burnishing with a cloth the size of a handkerchief. "I don't know if that's true. But I still go to Yanaka Ginza and buy them from the same tofu shop every year."

He meant Kappabashi-dori? No — Yanaka Ginza shotengai, the covered shopping street about a four-minute walk north of Nippori Station's South Exit. The tofu shop he mentioned is Yanaka Dofu Saito, and in early February they pile bags of *fuku mame* — the lucky roasted soybeans sold for Setsubun — next to the entrance in stacked brown bags for ¥350 each. They sell out by February 2nd most years. Mamoru-san gets there the last week of January.

What Setsubun Actually Is (and Isn't)

Setsubun falls on February 3rd in most years, and I want to be honest with you: it is not a national holiday. No trains run differently. No offices close. You won't walk outside and find parades. What you *will* find — if you know where to look — is something more interesting than a parade.

The word *setsubun* (節分) means, literally, "seasonal division," and it used to mark the transition before each of Japan's four traditional seasons. Over centuries it collapsed into a single annual event: the evening before *risshun*, the first day of spring on the old lunar calendar. The ritual is called *mamemaki* — bean scattering — and the logic is older than the current imperial family by about twelve centuries. Demons (*oni*) fear roasted soybeans. You throw them at the demon, or at someone wearing a demon mask, shouting *"Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!"* — "Demons out! Luck in!" — and then you eat one soybean for each year of your age, plus one more for good fortune in the coming year.

At sixty-three, Mamoru-san eats sixty-four beans. He says his jaw hurts by the end, and he says this with complete seriousness.

The ritual gets performed at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples across the country. Major ones — Naritasan Shinshoji Temple in Chiba, Zojoji Temple in Minato Ward, Sensoji in Asakusa — hold public ceremonies where priests and occasionally sumo wrestlers or minor celebrities throw bags of beans and lucky charms into crowds of several hundred people. These are worth seeing at least once. But they're also crowded in a way that makes the beans feel more like merchandise than ritual.

The Neighborhood Version Is Better

I'll say this plainly: the local shrine version of Setsubun is superior to the televised spectacle, and it's available to you if you put in about fifteen minutes of research before you arrive.

Most neighborhood shrines — and Tokyo alone has somewhere north of 200 in regular active use — hold small *mamemaki* ceremonies starting around 6:30pm on February 3rd. The Yanaka area has three within walking distance of each other: Yanaka Reien, Tennoji Temple, and the smaller Suwa Shrine at the top of the hill. The Tennoji ceremony is the one I keep going back to. It starts at 6:00pm, draws maybe 80 to 120 local residents, and the priests wear robes the color of winter persimmons. You stand in the cold and the beans hit your coat and you hear children screaming and laughing and someone's grandmother is shouting *"Oni wa soto!"* with the kind of conviction that makes you wonder what she's been through.

The beans hit your coat and you hear children screaming and laughing and someone's grandmother is shouting "Oni wa soto!" with the kind of conviction that makes you wonder what she's been through.

Mamoru-san goes every year and stands toward the back, because at his age, he says, he doesn't need to scramble for beans. He already has his beans at home. He goes for the noise.

This is, I think, the correct way to approach Setsubun as a traveler. Don't go to acquire something. Go to stand in the cold with strangers and be part of the noise.

Ehomaki: The Sushi Roll That Arrives Once a Year

Setsubun has a second ritual that arrived later — much later, in cultural terms — and is now inescapable: the *ehomaki*, a fat sushi roll roughly the diameter of a golf ball, which you are supposed to eat in silence, without cutting, facing the year's lucky compass direction, while making a wish.

The specific direction changes annually based on the zodiac. In 2025, it's north-northwest. You can find the precise bearing with a compass app if you're the kind of person who follows instructions. Most Japanese people I know eat the roll facing roughly the right direction, decide that's close enough, and then immediately talk through the whole thing.

The *ehomaki* itself is genuinely worth eating apart from any ritual. The roll contains seven fillings — one for each of the Seven Lucky Gods — typically including tamagoyaki (sweet egg), kampyo (dried gourd), cucumber, shiitake, and some combination of fish or eel depending on the shop. The standard version at a decent department store basement will run you around ¥800 to ¥1,200. The premium versions, featuring crab or otoro, climb past ¥3,000 without embarrassment.

My honest recommendation for *ehomaki* in Tokyo: the basement food hall at Isetan Shinjuku, specifically the prepared foods section on the B1F level near the Shinjuku Station side entrance, which opens at 10:00am. They start selling their Setsubun rolls about a week in advance, and the selection — I counted eleven different options last year — spans everything from the traditional to a version involving foie gras that I bought mostly out of disbelief. (It was fine. The traditional one was better.) If you're planning a trip that includes multiple food experiences, Isetan's basement is worth a dedicated hour regardless of what season you're visiting.

One practical note: *ehomaki* sells out. Not metaphorically — by 3:00pm on February 3rd, in most shops, the rolls are gone. Pre-order if you're serious, or arrive early.

On Demons, Luck, and the Texture of Roasted Soybeans

I asked Mamoru-san whether he actually believes any of it works. He put down his lacquer cloth and thought about this for longer than I expected.

"It's not about believing," he said finally. "It's about *doing*. You do it because your father did it. Your father did it because his father did it. The doing is the point."

This is, I've found over eight years here, a more Japanese answer than it might initially appear. The question of sincerity versus form is one that comes up constantly in conversations about Japanese ritual — festivals, temple visits, New Year ceremonies, all of it — and the answer is almost always some version of what Mamoru-san said. Participation is the meaning. The metaphysics are secondary.

What strikes me most about Setsubun, returning to it year after year, is how tactile it is. The masu box. The roasted beans — they're slightly harder than the edamame you're used to, with a dry, almost chalky crunch and a faint bitterness that lingers. The sound of them scattering on wood floors. The cold February air and the smell of shrine incense mixing with someone's cigarette smoke at the edge of the crowd. It is not a visually spectacular festival. It's a felt one.

Getting There and Getting the Timing Right

If you're basing yourself in central Tokyo, the Yanaka area is an easy excursion. From Nippori Station (served by the Yamanote Line and the Keisei Line, useful if you're considering rail pass options), Tennoji Temple is roughly a ten-minute walk south into the cemetery grounds. The small Suwa Shrine is about a six-minute walk from Nippori's South Exit, uphill past the old wooden houses.

For the bigger public ceremony experience: Zojoji Temple, a three-minute walk from Shibakoen Station on the Toei Mita Line, holds its ceremony at 3:00pm on February 3rd and draws several hundred people. It has the backdrop of Tokyo Tower, which is either atmospheric or touristy depending on your tolerance. Naritasan Shinshoji, about an hour from Tokyo by the Keisei Line from Ueno Station, holds one of the country's largest ceremonies the same afternoon — but you're committing to a half-day trip. It's worth it if you want scale.

If you want to buy beans and a proper *masu* box to take home, the kitchen goods district around Kappabashi-dori (about an eight-minute walk from Tawaramachi Station on the Ginza Line) has wooden masu boxes in every size from roughly ¥600 for a basic cedar version. They also sell ladles, chopstick rests, and lacquerware that has no relationship to Setsubun but will improve your kitchen regardless.

One final note from Mamoru-san, as I was putting on my coat to leave his shop. I asked if he had any advice for a foreign visitor attending their first Setsubun ceremony.

He picked up his cedar box and turned it over in his hands.

"Bring a bag," he said. "For the beans you catch. Don't let them fall on the ground." He paused. "Also, wear a warm coat. Demons don't come in the summer."

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*Yanaka Dofu Saito is located on Yanaka Ginza shotengai, approximately four minutes north of Nippori Station South Exit. Tennoji Temple is in Yanaka Cemetery, ten minutes by foot from the same exit. Isetan Shinjuku B1F is directly accessible from Shinjuku Station East Exit, Isetan-mae bus stop side.*

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