Over the weekend of April 22-23 2023, Tokyo hosted its first full-scale Rainbow Pride festival since 2019. As no pre-registration is required to enter the festival grounds or stay-home protocols to curtail the assembly, the event was a resounding success with an impressive turnout of 100,000 attendees on April 22, and 130,000 attendees on April 23.
This year, Tokyo Rainbow Pride also saw a record number of foreign embassies and organisations participating in the Pride parade, making for an international, family-friendly event that rivalled all previous festivals since the city's inaugural Rainbow Pride march in 2013.
The rallying slogan for this year’s Pride was ‘Press on until Japan changes’. Marchers joined the cause in support of the local LGTQIA+ community, as well as to protest against inequality. Although Japan has been slowly expanding its same-sex partnership system, activists are still fighting for LGBTQIA+ rights, including the right to same-sex marriage.
This year’s Pride parade was slightly different than usual in that participants were asked to register with one of roughly 39 participating organisations and groups for the march, rather than going through the Tokyo Rainbow Pride organisers.
Each group was given a different time to join the parade, which saw a procession of roughly 10,000 supporters make its way around central Shibuya from Yoyogi Park.
Mark Horn, one of the first members of the Gay Liberation Front who marched in New York's inaugural Pride parade in 1970, expressed delight in the number of people who turned up to support Tokyo Rainbow Pride this year. Horn lived in Tokyo during a time when such festivals didn't exist in Japan, and this year's turnout would have been inconceivable to him in the '80s.
While Japan still has a long way to go on the road to LGBTQIA+ equality, it's encouraging to see that progress is being made, albeit slowly.
This year's march may have ended, but Tokyo Rainbow Pride continues throughout the city, with a host of parties and events scheduled to take place in recognition of the queer community in the coming weeks.
Check our Tokyo Rainbow Pride guide for more Pride events happening until May, or see the event’s website for the full programme.
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