Global British icons don’t come much bigger than Harry Potter do they? Hogwarts! Platform 9 3/4! Quidditch! Hagrid! The Leaky Cauldron, and erm magic! Oh who am I kidding! That’s all I know of the wizard boy as I have only seen the first film and I remember very little about that! Everyone else seems to love him but I’ve just never had too much interest in it all.

A couple of years ago, the Marunouchi area of Tokyo had a Star Wars Bright Christmas event of sorts as part of the promotional campaign for the release of ‘The Rise Of Skywalker‘ (2019). Some of the exhibits were pretty cool so when I saw that there was a Harry Potter one this Christmas I thought I’d check it out explore the area despite my poor knowledge of the franchise.

On the first day of my Winter holiday I met my wife at Yurakucho after she’d finished work for the day. After some ramen for dinner we began our tour of the Potter trees starting with The Tree of Hogwarts Letters at Marunouchi Brick Square. I’m told that this mini red and gold tree is inspired by the scene where Harry receives his acceptance letter from Hogwarts!

Not far from there was the Marunouchi Building which is home (temporarily!) to the Tree of Hogwarts Magic, and we arrived just in time for the 3D hologram light show display.

As ever there were some stalls nearby selling Harry Potter merchandise marking 20 years of movie magic!

Tree of Fantastic Beasts at Marunouchi Oazo Shin Tokyo Building was next.

To the side of that was a glass cabinet displaying something or other relating to the films!

That wasn’t all though as there was a giant book display exhibit for people to get themselves photographed in front of and pretend they are part of the cover.

Our fourth and final stop was the 30 metre tall Christmas tree shaped illumination at the entrance of Tokyo Torch Park. This is known as Tree of Owl Post and I’ll just assume that fans reading this get that reference as I sure don’t!!

It seems like there might be a few more Harry Potter themed places in the area such as souvenir shops, cafes, food stands and a gallery. All of these displays began on November 11th and in typical Japanese fashion end on Christmas Day. No surprise maybe given that decorations often get taken down on the 25th to make way for the New Years ones.

With Christmas illuminations lighting the pedestrian-only streets around a lot of the Marunouchi area, it makes for a lovely wander at nighttime. The Harry Potter-themed exhibits are nothing too special to be fair but they do help attract people (probably too many people!) and create a nice atmosphere around this very pleasant area of Tokyo. There were a few other non-Harry Potter related photo stops in that area too such as this giant bear and yet another tree!

Bonus: Before meeting my wife I thought I’d take a quick stop at Nogizaka Station to go to Tokyo Midtown for the nearby illuminations display.

The highlight of this exhibition was the three metre tall Snow Light Globe with falling snow and flickering aurora illuminations. Here are a few fairly identical pictures of that!

During my final week at work I popped over to see the Winter Prism of Light illuminations at Shibuya Stream.

If we include that last one then that’s three sites for illuminations which is easily enough for me, but for those wanting see more there are around a dozen other places lit up in and around Tokyo for this season.

Click here to read ‘Star Wars Bright Christmas In Marunouchi’

Click here to read ‘Tokyo’s Happiest Christmas Tree & The Corridor Of Glowing Lights’

Click here to read ‘London Filming Locations: Harry Potter & The Philosophers Stone (2002)’