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Hanahata · Adachi · the northern edge of the 23 wards

Where the Rooster Market Began

Every November, Asakusa sells bamboo rakes all night. The market started somewhere else: in a rice-farming village at the top of Tokyo, where it still runs on the same two days.

Tori-no-ichi 酉の市Hanahata Ōtori Jinja · 7 & 19 Nov 2026Facts checked October 2026

If you have been in Tokyo in November, you may have been carried along by the crowd at Asakusa's Ōtori shrine: rakes stacked to the eaves with gold coins and masks, stallholders clapping in unison each time one sells. That is the tori-no-ichi, the market held on the days of the rooster.

Asakusa calls its own market the new one. Edo did too. The original is four stops north on the Tsukuba Express and a bus ride beyond, in what was once the farming village of Hanamata (花又村). You give up the lanterns-to-the-sky scale and the convenience of a subway exit. You get the same rakes, a fraction of the queue, and the story of how a farm festival lost its crowd to a pleasure quarter.

A harvest market by the rice fields

The shrine's own history puts the start in the Ōei era (1394–1428). Villagers held a thanksgiving on the rooster day of November, said to be the death day of the shrine's deity, the legendary prince Yamato Takeru. A market grew at the gate. It sold what farmers needed after the harvest: tools, and among them the bamboo rake. The rake later became the charm.

The rooster was not decoration. Worshippers offered live chickens, said to be the god's favourite food. The next day the birds were carried south and set free in front of the Kannon hall at Sensō-ji in Asakusa. The shrine says its parishioners would not eat chicken, because it belonged to the god, and that this held until around 1945. Some families still keep it.

Edo had a name for the order of things. Hanahata was the hon-tori (本酉), the main rooster, or the upper one. Asakusa was the shin-tori (新酉), the new one, or the lower one. The words still appear in Japanese guides. Hardly anyone visiting the new one has heard of the main one.

Getting there: Rokuchō Station (六町駅), Tsukuba Express → Tōbu bus from stop 1; the shrine names the 文教大学循環 loop. Get off at Hanahata 6-chōme (花畑六丁目), about 8 min by one listing, then 8 min on foot. Or Yatsuka Station (谷塚駅), Tōbu Skytree Line → Tōbu bus for 花畑桑袋団地, about 5 min to 草加記念体育館, then 8 min on foot. 足立区花畑7-16-8
When: Market days 7 November (Sat) and 19 November (Thu) 2026. The shrine says its gate opens at 5:00 and closes around midnight on those days.
Reality check: Fares not verified; use an IC card. On market days a shuttle bus runs 9:00–21:00 between the shrine and a temporary car park whose location is announced later. Shrine office 03-3883-2908, 8:30–18:00, Japanese only.
Edo's three rooster markets, on one train line Schematic. North is up. Not to scale. Tsukuba Express Asakusa Stn Minami-Senju Kita-Senju Stn Aoi Rokuchō Stn bus + walk UPPER · hon-tori 本酉 Hanahata Ōtori Jinja · the original from c. 1400 · still held 5 min walk MIDDLE · naka-tori 中酉 Shōsenji, the red-gate temple market closed in the Meiji era 10 min walk LOWER · shin-tori 新酉 Asakusa Ōtori Jinja & Chōkokuji from 1771 · still held · Yoshiwara next door live chickens, released the next day Two stops between each. The original is the one that needs a bus.
The three markets sat in a line up the road north out of Edo. Today a single train line connects their stations. Only the two ends are still held.

How the crowd went south

Hanahata was a long walk from Edo, and for most of the year nobody made it. What filled the shrine on market days was gambling. Japanese sources agree that in the mid-Edo period this was the one tori-no-ichi where betting was tolerated, at street tables in front of the shrine.

Then the gambling was banned, and the crowd left. When this happened is where the sources split. Japanese Wikipedia and Asakusa's own market site put the ban in the An'ei era, 1772–1781. The Kokugakuin University Encyclopedia of Shinto says the Meiji period, a century later. Both versions agree on the result.

The timing on the Asakusa side is not in doubt. In 1771 the temple Chōkokuji brought in an image of the rooster deity and began opening it to the public on the November rooster days. The shrine that grew from this, Ōtori Jinja (鷲神社), stood directly beside the new Yoshiwara pleasure quarter. An Edo man had a reason to walk that far. Hanahata had rice fields.

Six centuries, two markets 1400 1600 1800 2000 HANAHATA Ōei era, 1394–1428: harvest thanksgiving, market at the gate gambling banned, 1772–81 (An'ei)? or Meiji? main hall rebuilt 1854–75 ASAKUSA 1771: Chōkokuji opens its rooster image, next to the new Yoshiwara c. 1945: chicken taboo fades Dates from the shrine, Japanese Wikipedia, torinoichi.jp and the Kokugakuin Encyclopedia of Shinto. The ban's date is disputed.
Hanahata had nearly four centuries alone. Asakusa opened in 1771; the ban that emptied Hanahata came within a decade of that, or a century later, depending on the source.

The middle one that closed

There was a third market between the two. Shōsenji, a Pure Land temple in Kita-Senju known as the red-gate temple (赤門寺, Akamon-dera), held the naka-tori (中酉), the middle rooster. It was shut down in the Meiji era, so today only Hanahata and Asakusa can say their market has run since Edo.

Nothing of the market remains at Shōsenji. Its vermilion gate does, near the old Nikkō highway, and it is the reason to stop: it is the only marker of the middle of a route that otherwise survives only in the names upper and lower. The temple draws its own crowds on 15–16 January and 15–16 July, when it shows a seated statue of Enma, king of hell, carved in 1789.

Getting there: Kita-Senju Station (北千住駅), about 5 min on foot west.
When: Any day for the gate. Opening hours of the grounds not verified.
Reality check: It is a working temple with no rooster market and no signage about one. Look, and move on.

On the day at Hanahata

There are two kinds of rake, and they are bought in different places. The big decorated ones, with masks, rice sheaves and gold, come from the stalls along the approach. You choose one and the stallholders clap for you when you pay. The small one, the kakkome (かっこめ), comes from the shrine's charm desk. It is a plain rake with a paper charm and a few ears of rice tied on. The name is a pun on kakikomu, to rake in.

At the charm desk: かっこめをひとつください (kakkome o hitotsu kudasai).

At the stalls, prices are not posted and haggling is part of the event. Ask for the smallest one first and work up.

At a rake stall, pointing: いちばん小さいのはいくらですか (ichiban chiisai no wa ikura desu ka).

Before you leave, look at the main hall. It is solid zelkova wood, rebuilt over twenty years from 1854 to 1875 on shogunate orders by the Satake family, lords of Akita, who traced their line to a warrior said to have prayed here for victory in the 11th century. The pillars at the front carry ascending and descending dragons, which the shrine attributes to a carver of the Hidari Jingorō school.

A local history site counted about 100 stalls in the grounds and surrounding streets in 2024, most of them festival food. Market days overlap with Shichi-Go-San, the November shrine visit for children, so expect families in kimono.

Asakusa, the same day

If you want to see what Hanahata lost, go to Asakusa on the same date. The market opens at midnight with a drum and runs for 24 hours. The shrine gives out its own kakkome only on market days. Around 80 stalls fill the grounds, and one guide singles out Yaotoshi (八百敏), next to the hall, which sells only here and changes its design every year.

The crowd is the point and the problem. A Japanese guide warns that from midday to evening the queue to pray can take hours, and that there is one toilet. Early morning and late night are quieter.

Getting there: Iriya Station (入谷駅), Hibiya Line, or Asakusa Station (浅草駅), Tsukuba Express: about 10 min on foot from either.
When: 0:00–24:00 on each rooster day in 2025. 2026 times not yet announced.
Reality check: Shrine office 03-3876-1515. No English signage at the stalls.
The rooster comes round every 12 days 151015202530 7 ichi-no-tori Sat 19 ni-no-tori Thu 1 Dec 12 days 12 days: out of November A third rooster day falls in November only when the first is on the 1st–6th. Those years are said to bring more fires. 2026 has two, so no san-no-tori.
Two chances this year, twelve days apart. The 7th is the Saturday; the 19th is a working Thursday.

The third rooster and the fires

Because the rooster day comes every 12 days, November holds either two or three of them. People in Tokyo say a year with a third, the san-no-tori, brings more fires. No one has shown that it does. One explanation offered in Japanese is that it was invented by wives who did not want a third night of their husbands walking home past Yoshiwara. 2026 has only two, so the question does not arise.

The market food has moved on too. Edo's rooster-market treats were a whole head of taro, tō-no-imo (頭の芋), for getting ahead, and a millet cake. From the end of the Edo period a sticky sweet flavoured with sanshō pepper, kiri-zanshō (切山椒), took the millet cake's place.

The honest part

The journey is the cost. Asakusa is a walk from a subway exit. Hanahata is a train, a bus and a walk to the far north edge of Tokyo, and on a market day expect a crowded bus. Coming back after dark, check the timetable before you leave the shrine.

The origin story is a tradition, not a record. The Ōei date comes from the shrine. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia writes "is said to have begun". The date of the gambling ban that decided everything is disputed by a century.

Away from the rakes, the stalls are standard festival food. Do not come expecting an Edo market preserved in amber. Come for the place where the custom started and the fact that it is still running.

The second date is a Thursday. If your trip allows only that day, go in daylight. The shrine closes its gate around midnight, so there is no all-night market like Asakusa's.

Kumade prices are not published anywhere we could find. A small decorated rake can still cost more than you expect. The kakkome from the charm desk is the inexpensive way to take one home.

If you only have one day

Saturday 7 November 2026, all three markets in order, north up one train line.

  1. Asakusa Ōtori Jinja from Iriya Station, before the midday queue. Kakkome at the charm desk, a lap of the stalls.
  2. Walk 10 min to Asakusa Station on the Tsukuba Express, not the Ginza Line station of the same name.
  3. Two stops to Kita-Senju. Five minutes west to Shōsenji's red gate.
  4. Back on the Tsukuba Express, two stops to Rokuchō. Tōbu bus from stop 1 to Hanahata 6-chōme, then 8 min on foot.
  5. Hanahata Ōtori Jinja. Second kakkome, the dragons on the hall, lunch from the stalls.
  6. Bus back to Rokuchō before the evening crowd, or stay for dusk if you are going straight home.
Getting on the bus at Rokuchō, to the driver: 花畑六丁目に止まりますか (Hanahata roku-chōme ni tomarimasu ka).

Running late? Drop Shōsenji. Keep Hanahata: it is the reason for the day, and it only happens twice a year.