Hanno Hina – Almost every city and town in Japan display Hina dolls for the dolls festival leading up to girls day, March 3rd, annually. But some towns or cities celebrate the dolls festival in a bigger way. In Saitama the four cities best known for their dolls festival hina displays are Iwatsuki, Konosu, Tokorozawa and Hanno. The Hanno Dolls festival event typically takes place from mid February to mid March.
However, currently, Hanno Tourist Association are not actively promoting their events. There is reportedly a small Hina festival this year, but currently the only information online is a small piece in a flyer and a tweet! The small flyer is for one of the satellite sites: Hanno City Misugidai District Administrative Center. The tweet shows the brochure for 2023:
Hanno Hina Dolls Festival
The Hanno dolls festival normally involves 132 locations that have dolls on display. You can go around to as many or as few as you like. During the course of the “festival” they have a stamp rally. You can get a stamp at each of the 132 locations. Judging by the tweet above, the stamp rally is on, but you will probably have to pick up a physical copy of the brochure in Hanno City. The main event space for the festival is Misegurakinujin a cultural asset of Hanno City.
The only place that currently has official information online, so far, is the Hanno City Misugidai District Administrative Center. But they have also stated they won’t be participating in the stamp rally. Link to that information here.
Information
Event: The 17th annual Hanno Hina Decoration Exhibition 第17回飯能ひな飾り展
Dates: Tuesday February 21st to Sunday March 12th
Time: tbc. The main facility (see venue below) opens 10 am to 4 pm from Wednesday to Sunday, closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Cost: free
Venue: Hanno City Cultural Asset – Misegurakinujin, 飯能市指定有形文化財「店蔵絹甚」, 2-2 Honcho, Hanno, Saitama 357-0032. View on Google Maps.
Access
Access will depend on what site you are going to. For the main event space at Misegurakinujin the nearest station is Hanno station on the Seibu Ikebukuro line and Higashi Hanno station on both Seibu Ikebukuro and JR Hachiko Lines.
Image from the official website, which unfortunately will not be advertising this event this year. They ask you to go to the Hanno Tourism website for this year’s information. But, unfortunately, the tourist association have a note saying that due to the directives from the prefecture they are currently not advertising events.
More Hina and February events here.
Editor’s note: this event post was temporarily off the website during the pandemic. It was republished on February 15th 2023.