Osaka has a lot of festivals and activities are held during the summer. From music festival, summer program by the Osaka University, cultural festival, firework festivals, and many more, the activities during this season caters for many kinds of people. Find out more on what event are available here in this season.
Summer Sonic Festival – Osaka’s Hottest Summer Music Festival
Are you a rock music enthusiast? Do you like western rock music as well as you liked Japanese rock music? If you do, try going to Summer Sonic Festival, Japan’s premier rock festival where it features famous bands from the west, and also band from Japan as well, both mainstream and alternative rock band, and also bits and pieces of pop and EDM
Summer Sonic is normally a 2-day event (some years make it a 3-day event), held simultaneously in 2 locations: Chiba and Osaka. The line-up for the first day will perform at one of the locations, and most of them will swap with the location on the second day. So you don’t really need to go to both sites to enjoy all the performance they had to offer, except for some band, where they may be performing on one site only.
Osaka Site: Maishima Sonic Park
For the Osaka site of the Summer Sonic Festival, is normally held at Maishima Sports Island. During the event, the site id called Maishima Sonic Park, where it consists of a number of stages, where different artist will perform simultaneously on different stages. Be sure to check at which stage will the band you want to watch will perform on.
Spot name: Maishima Sports Island
- Street address: 2-2-15 Hokukoryokuchi, Konohana-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka 554-0042, Japan
- Access: 30-minute on the bus from Nishikujo Station
Osaka University Summer Program
If you are perhaps enrolled into any of the university in Japan as an international student but in using English as means of communication, and wishes to improve your Japanese language more, Osaka University offers a summer program for this exact reason. The summer program is called J-ShIP, “Japanese Short-stay In-session Program”.
The J-ShIP Summer is aimed more for beginners where they are expected to build basic proficiency equivalent to N4 in the JLPT scale. Enrolling in this course, students will join a class of about 15 students, with 2 to 3 classes per day, and assigned with daily homework, and also a day session of a collaborative study with the Osaka University students.
Accommodation will be included in the program fees, which the course fees is around 260,000 yen for a whole course period of 2 months from mid of June to mid of August. Students can also opt for staying in a homestay, where the host family will be around 30-60 minutes distance from the Osaka University, Minoh campus, the location where the classes will be held.
Also during the program, there will be an optional overnight excursion, where the student may enjoy learning the culture and enjoy the beautiful scenery of Japan at the same time practicing the language.
Spot name: Osaka University, Minoh Campus (course will be held here)
- Street address: 8-1-1 Aomatanihigashi, Minoo-shi, Osaka- 562-0022, Japan
- Access: 5-minute on car from Saito-Nishi Station
Things to do In Osaka During Summer
Apart from the rock-heads and study-nerds related activities, there are a lot more to enjoy in Osaka during summer, including sightseeing, hydrangeas garden, Osakan foods, but there are when we talk about summer, the festival is the topmost that resonates with the word summer. Here is a list of festivals that you can only find available during the summer:
Tenjin Matsuri
Tenjin Matsuri, literally translated as “Festival of Gods”, is a festival for the deity of learning, enshrined in Osaka Tenmangu to have a check on Osaka’s city prosperity. Tenjin Matsuri is also one of the top three festivals in Japan. On July 25, watch the parade where they bring the portable shrine throughout the streets and on the boat cruising along the Okawa River, with 2 hours of firework displays, and also street foods from the stalls around the event area.
Spot name: Osaka Tenmangu
- Street address: 2-1-8 Tenjinbashi, Kita-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka 530-0041, Japan
- Access:
- 5-minute walk south of Osaka Tenmangu Station
- 5-minute walk southeast of Minami-Morimachi Station
Dotonbori River Lantern Festival
Visit Dotonbori Canal in the evening and you’ll be served with colourful billboards and neon signs on the surrounding buildings. But during summer, for two-month straight in July and August, the entire 800 meters of the Dotonbori Walk, alongside the Dotonbori River is being lined up and illuminated with around 1,300 lanterns.
Spot name: Dotonbori River Walk
- Street address: Dotonbori, Chuo-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka 542-0071, Japan
- Access: 5-minute walk north of Namba Station
Naniwa Yodogawa Firework Festival
If you fancy some great firework display, then come to Osaka around early of August, normally on the first Saturday of the month, for the Naniwa Yodogawa Firework Festival. The firework display will be held for about 1 hour from 7.40 PM to 8.40 PM.
As this festival is quite famous, do come here very early to get a good spot for viewing and enjoying the best of fireworks that Naniwa Yodogawa Firework Festival has to offer.
Spot name: Yodogawa Riverbed
- Street address: Yodogawa-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka Japan
- Access:
- 11-minute walk east of Tsukamoto Station
- 16-minute walk southwest of Juso Station
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