Japan Celeb Jun Matsumoto to Participate in Popular Festival in May

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:23 JST, March 3, 2023

HAMAMATSU — Actor-singer Jun Matsumoto will play the part of shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu in a cavalry procession at the Hamamatsu Festival in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, on May 5, the city’s municipal government said Thursday.

Matsumoto currently stars in NHK’s epic historical drama “Dosuru Ieyasu,” playing Tokugawa, who founded an eponymous shogunate in Edo (now Tokyo) that governed Japan during the Edo period (1603-1867). Tokugawa, who succeeded in uniting and dominating the whole country, lived in Hamamatsu from ages 29 to 45.

The annual festival — which takes place from May 3 to 5 — celebrates childbirth. It will be the first time for the festival to hold a cavalry procession.