Setsubun Countdown

Setsubun, held around February 3 on the eve of the traditional start of spring in Japan, is the lively bean-throwing festival in which families scatter roasted soybeans shouting "Demons out! Fortune in!" to drive away misfortune and welcome a lucky new season.

History

The word setsubun means "seasonal division," and in the old Japanese calendar there were four such divisions, one on the eve of each season. The one before risshun, the first day of spring, mattered most: under the traditional lunisolar reckoning it fell close to the New Year, so it became a natural moment to sweep away the old year's misfortune. The festival's roots lie in tsuina, a court ceremony of driving out evil spirits that Japan adopted from continental year-end purification rites; chronicles record it being performed at the imperial court as early as the eighth century, with officials in fearsome masks chasing invisible demons from the palace. Over the centuries the rite moved from the court to temples, shrines and ordinary homes, and roasted soybeans became its signature. Written accounts from the Muromachi period (14th-16th centuries) already describe mamemaki, the scattering of beans to the cry of "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" — "Demons out! Fortune in!" Beans were regarded as purifying, and the pun that mame (bean) can also be read as "destroying evil" gave the custom extra force. During the Edo period the celebration spread widely among townspeople, together with charms such as holly sprigs and sardine heads hung at doorways to repel demons. Modern Setsubun keeps the old spirit with new flourishes. Major temples such as Senso-ji in Tokyo and Naritasan near Narita host huge bean-throwing events where sumo wrestlers and celebrities hurl packets of lucky beans into cheering crowds. The ehomaki custom — eating a whole uncut sushi roll in silence while facing the year's lucky direction — began among Osaka merchants and swept the whole country from the late 1980s, when convenience stores began promoting the rolls nationwide. Because the date follows the astronomical start of spring, Setsubun usually falls on February 3 but occasionally shifts to February 2, as it did in 2021 and 2025.

Meaning

At its heart, Setsubun is a ritual of renewal at the turning of the seasons. The oni — horned demons of Japanese folklore — stand for everything a household hopes to leave behind: illness, bad luck and lingering troubles from the old year. Throwing beans at them, often at a parent gamely wearing a demon mask, turns purification into a game the whole family plays together, and eating one bean for each year of one's age quietly wishes for health in the year ahead. The festival also preserves Japan's old sense that the new year begins with spring. Even though the modern calendar starts in January, Setsubun remains a second, seasonal threshold — a cheerful national moment to reset, invite fortune across the doorstep and look forward to warmer days.