Holidays in Japan are interesting things. They tend to celebrate the more popular American holidays in the more consumer aspect. Halloween is a good example of this. Halloween in America is a commercial holiday through and through. We have giant shops dedicated to costumes and entire rows of candy in the supermarkets dedicated to Halloween candy. We then have parties that are for grown ups to just dress up in fun costumes. This is very much how Japan views Halloween. The difference is that it isn’t as big here. Things like costume shops popping up around this time aren’t really existent. Instead you’ll have a small section in a store just for costumes and props. There is a store in Kyoto called Loft that had most of a floor dedicated to the Halloween stuff. That was quite fun.

The school I go to had a Halloween party that I attended as the embodiment of America. It took awhile to find everything that I needed for my costume, but most things were found at a $4.00 Store. Its like a nice Dollar Store. So my costume was cheap. Some people had never celebrated Halloween so they went out and bought expensive costumes from Loft and other stores. The party over all was interesting to watch because it was just like a normal party except people were in costume. This is kind of how Japan views things. The interesting part of this was the costumes though. Japan has a strange sense of humor and that was reflected in the costumes. Things like wigs that blow off to make it look like a topee falling off. It did get weirder but its hard to explain. This wasn’t as present in the party I went to. Most people dressed up as zombies or witches. Some people did go all out and make costumes that were pretty cool like this.

Over all Japan views this Holiday as a reason to be different. Its an interesting social observation to say the least. Oh and they don’t really sell Halloween candy. Its sad. Kids don’t really go around trick or treating either. Its just not a Japanese thing to do I guess.

-Kyle