A New Year Fixed by Imperial Decree, Against the Region's Own Custom

Shogatsu, Japanese New Year, falls on the first of January and runs three days by the reckoning this rule records, the traditional sanganichi span. The date itself marks a deliberate historical break from the wider East Asian tradition Japan had shared for centuries. Until 1873, Japan followed a lunisolar calendar closely related to the one still used to fix Lunar New Year in China, Korea and Vietnam, and the new year fell on a variable date in that older system rather than fixed at January 1.

The Meiji government's calendar reform of 1873 adopted the Gregorian calendar by imperial decree and, unlike its neighbors who retained the older lunisolar dating specifically for the new year even after adopting Gregorian dates for other civil purposes, moved Japan's new year celebration to January 1 outright, a change that set Japanese practice apart from the shared regional tradition going forward. Shinto observance around the new year centers on hatsumode, the year's first visit to a shrine, along with foods and decorations associated with welcoming the toshigami, the year deity believed to visit each household, practices that carried over into the new fixed date from the older calendar's own new year customs.