Lucky Foxes on the March: Akita Festivals Gathers About 100 Participants in Masks and Makeup

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:37 JST, October 30, 2025

AKITA — An event in which people disguised themselves as foxes using masks or makeup and marched through town was held on Oct. 11 along the Torimachi shopping street in Akita City. The festival, called Shofuku-gitsune no Gyoretsu (March of foxes inviting luck), is meant to bring luck.

The festival was first held in 2002 as a way to liven up the shopping street, and this year’s was the 24th edition. This time, about 100 ‘foxes’ participated, including some locals.

The participants departed Shofuku Inari Shrine, which is located in the shopping street, and marched along a roughly 1-kilometer course. As they marched, they distributed rice stalks and red-and-white daifuku rice cakes to spectators along the course.

Each time the march passed in front of a store in the shopping street, the participants, as one, shouted, “Shobai hanjo, kon, kon, kon.” The first phrase expresses hope for the business to be prosperous, and “kon” is meant to imitate a fox’s cry.

A second-year graduate student, 24, at Akita International University participated in the event for the first time this year. “We all had fun putting on makeup. The whole community got excited, so it’s a good memory for me,” she said.