My wife and I walked into our local grocery store after its two-day New Year's break and immediately noticed something that made us both say 「早い」 (hayai / "so fast") in unison. Setsubun decorations were already going up.
It felt similar to how Christmas decorations appear right after Halloween. That kind of seasonal whiplash is almost a preview of the chaos that comes with the holiday cycle.
By late January and early February, social media begins filling up with videos of parents dressing up as demons and "invading" their homes. Toddlers and babies panic, crying as they desperately throw roasted soybeans and beg the demon to leave.
In its modern, simplified form, Setsubun often functions as a way to teach children to behave—otherwise the oni will come for them. In that sense, it's not unlike Santa's "naughty or nice" list.
However, the tradition runs far deeper than that, with symbolism stretching back hundreds of years.
The Backdrop
Setsubun is often linked to older purification practices influenced by Chinese court customs. During the Heian period, court monks adopted an exorcism ritual known as tsuina (追儺), performed to drive out disease, misfortune, and evil spirits at seasonal boundaries. This ritual is often cited as an influence on what we now know as Setsubun.
Across cultures, winter has long symbolized death and hardship, while spring represents life, rebirth, and fertility. The transition from the cold, dry months to the warmer, wetter air of spring often brought illness, as people struggled to adapt to sudden changes in temperature.
This seasonal tug-of-war—when winter refuses to let go—was viewed as dangerous. In Japan, it was personified as the oni: supernatural beings associated with disease, disaster, and misfortune.
Traditionally, oni were believed to come from the northeast, a direction considered unlucky. They were depicted as horned ogres with red or blue skin, wearing tiger-skin loincloths. Over time, they became Japan's archetypal villains.
When Setsubun Happens
Setsubun is observed at the point where winter is considered to end and spring is about to begin. Rather than falling on a fixed calendar date, it is tied to Japan's traditional seasonal system, which divides the year according to solar terms.
In most years, Setsubun takes place on February 3, though occasionally it may fall on February 2 or February 4 depending on how the solar calendar aligns. The day immediately following Setsubun is known as Risshun, the first day of spring.
This timing matters because Setsubun is performed at a precise seasonal threshold, marking the symbolic close of winter before spring formally begins.
Preparing for Setsubun: Hiiragi-Iwashi and the Roasted Soybeans
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| Photo: Hiiragi-iwashi talisman (holly and sardine), by Uo3rt / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. |
One of the first preparations for Setsubun is the creation of a talisman called hiiragi-iwashi.
It consists of a branch of Japanese holly, leaves still attached, with the head of a roasted sardine affixed to it. This talisman is placed outside the entrance of a home—especially if the doorway faces northeast.
According to folk belief, demons are repelled by the sharp holly leaves and the strong smell of sardines. Once driven out, the talisman helps prevent them from returning.
Traditionally, soybeans are roasted at home and placed on the household altar so they can be symbolically blessed before the ritual. In practice, however, many families obtain prepared beans directly from local shrines, where monks roast and distribute them ahead of Setsubun.
In my wife's case, she often went to the shrine as a child with her family and picked up the beans as well as other goodies, such as rakugan—a kind of traditional dry sweet—provided by the monks as part of the celebration.
Bean Throwing
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| Photo: Setsubun bean throwing with ogre mask, by Masayuki Kawaguchi / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons |
The main ritual of Setsubun takes place in the evening. When it begins, doors and windows are opened, and family members throw the beans outward while chanting oni wa soto! fuku wa uchi!—driving the oni away and inviting good fortune inside. In some parts of Japan, however, the chant omits oni wa soto, reflecting the belief that not all oni are inherently bad.
Traditionally, the chant is shouted with force, as if confronting a real intruder. The performance is intentionally loud and direct, reinforcing the idea that the oni are being expelled and are not welcome to remain.
Once the beans have been thrown, the doors and windows are closed. The hiiragi-iwashi remains outside, guarding the entrance, and the household is considered cleansed—ready to welcome spring.
After the beans are thrown, it is customary to collect and eat the same number of beans as your age, a practice believed to promote longevity and good health.
In addition to eating the beans, many families also eat a large sushi roll known as ehōmaki, consumed while facing a designated lucky direction—in silence. The roll traditionally contains seven fillings, representing the Seven Lucky Gods (Shichifukujin, 七福神)—a more recent and commercially adopted tradition. If you're curious about Japanese food culture and what eating like a local really looks like, ehōmaki season is a great window into it.
Why do you throw soybeans at oni?
The use of beans in Setsubun comes in part from Japanese wordplay. The word for beans, mame (豆), has long been associated with ideas of repelling evil. One common explanation links mame to ma no me (魔の目), meaning "the demon's eye." According to legend, throwing beans symbolically strikes the oni in the eye, driving it away rather than confronting it directly.
Another widely cited interpretation connects mame with the phrase ma o metsu suru (魔を滅する), meaning "to destroy evil," sometimes shortened in folk explanation to mametsu (魔滅). In this reading, the act of throwing beans represents the symbolic eradication of misfortune from the home.
There is also meaning in the beans themselves. Setsubun beans are always roasted, which renders them "dead" seeds. This detail matters: throwing raw beans that could sprout was believed to risk allowing bad luck to take root and return. Roasting the beans ensures that once the oni are driven out, they cannot come back.
Beyond wordplay and symbolism, beans were also practical. As a staple food, they represented life and sustenance, while being inexpensive and widely available to ordinary households. Over time, this combination of linguistic symbolism, ritual logic, and everyday practicality cemented bean throwing as the central act of Setsubun.
We Do It Too
When I was a child, my parents used similar tactics to encourage proper behavior and consistency in prayer—though in a very different cultural context, since I did not grow up in Japan. Later, when I learned about Setsubun and its purpose, I realized how closely it mirrored a tradition I was already familiar with in Islam.
In Japan, oni are believed to bring calamity and misfortune. In Islam, jinn play a comparable role. Certain behaviors within the home were believed to drive angels away and invite jinn in, creating spiritual imbalance. Because of this, families relied on specific practices to restore order and protect the household, including warding off sihir, or black magic.
One such practice is the recitation of the second chapter of the Qur'an, which is believed to expel harmful jinn and invite angels back into the home.
Seen this way, Setsubun functions as a physical, symbolic act of purification, while Islam emphasizes recitation as a means of spiritual protection. The methods differ, but the intent—to cleanse space and restore balance—remains strikingly similar. It's another example of how ten people can express the same idea in ten different colors.
Tradition to Practice
Anecdotally, my wife's experience with Setsubun followed the tradition up to a certain point. She recalled, somewhat jovially, that her family focused almost entirely on the front door. Since it was a sliding door, her brother stood by, ready to open and close it quickly.
At her signal, the door would slide open, and she would throw the beans outside with full conviction, as if the oni were standing right there in front of her—yelling at them to get the heck out of dodge. For her and her brother, it was a fun release for the pent-up emotions of winter.
The rest of the house was considered cleansed in the traditional way, and those were the beans they later collected and ate. However, her parents didn't dress up as oni or stage the ritual in that manner.
Final Thoughts
Today, Setsubun often looks loud, playful, and even a little absurd—plastic masks, crying children, and soybeans scattered across living room floors. It's easy to dismiss it as just another seasonal event, squeezed into Japan's relentless holiday calendar.
But beneath the noise, Setsubun still performs the same quiet work it always has. It marks a boundary. It acknowledges uncertainty. And it gives people a way—however symbolic—to confront it together before moving forward.
Whether practiced strictly, loosely, or somewhere in between, the ritual remains less about demons and more about intention: clearing space, restoring balance, and welcoming the good vibes. In that sense, Setsubun hasn't changed nearly as much as it first appears.
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Very interesting article!
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