Festivals & Events
Otaue Rice Planting Festival 御田植神事
A summer celebration full of ritual, dance and song about Japan's primary food staple
Rice-planting season is a fascinating and beautiful period in Japan. Open fields are covered knee deep with water, with green stalks of rice slowly emerging from the surface.
You can see the rice-planting rituals at the Otaue Rice Planting Festival on June 14 at Osaka's Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine 
, and learn how it was done centuries ago in Japan.
Don't Miss
- The procession of people dressed in full samurai garb
- The purification ritual to bless the seeds
How to Get There
From Tennoji Station, walk to adjacent Tennoji Ekimae Station and take the Hankaidenki Hankai line to Sumiyoshitorii-mae Station. You will arrive next to Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine .
How They Do It
Oxen, harnessed to wooden plows, first till the fields. Priests then perform a purification ritual and distribute the seedlings. Dressed in traditional garb, festival participants begin to plant the seeds, all while a variety of rituals, dances and songs are performed.
Otaue celebrates the planting of rice seedlings in paddy fields
Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine
The rice-planting festival is held on the grounds of Osaka's Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine , a worthwhile destination in itself. The shrine is one of few in Japan that was built prior to the influence of mainland Asia.
Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine's architecture is considered a pure representation of Japan
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