It sure has been a busy 2025 with multiple activities and events each and every month. The majority of them have been sports matches but there were various other things like travel, concerts, events and more personal family stuff, the like of which did not feature on Tokyo Fox until now. Why I’ve never done this before I really don’t know! Well, probably because it’s actually quite time consuming to collate it all! Anyway, let’s begin our review of the year by rewinding back to the start of the year.

1. JANUARY

Highlight: Our trip to finally visit Izu Shaboten Zoo in Shizuoka Prefecture early January was a wonderful day out for our family and was preceded by a visit to the picture postcard cinder-cone Mount Omuro lying over the road from the zoo.

Honorary mention(s): Elsewhere, 2025’s opening month was fairly quiet but I did attend a car event in Tokyo as well as table tennis and wheelchair basketball competitions which all offered something a little different for me in terms of sporting action.

2. FEBRUARY

Highlight: Fairly slim pickings for this month but watching a J-League match on the opening weekend of the season at the National Stadium with my friend and his family was a lovely afternoon out even if the result wasn’t too good for them.

Honorary mention(s): The other events featured in the collage above include a couple of rugby matches (one was a final), a handball game and a fairly minor tennis tournament.

3. MARCH

Highlight: Perhaps the busiest month of the year in terms of events and certainly the most expensive one! The highlight was seeing Kylie Minogue at Ariake Arena which was actually my first ever pop concert. It was an absolutely fantastic show and quite different from the guitar-based bands I usually see.

Honorary mention(s): Just a few days after Kylie, we saw Jack White play live at Toyosu Pit which was obviously very different in style. There was a rugby match squeezed in between those two live performances, and the week before all that I took a rather extravagant day trip to Sendai to see a football match at a rarely used and inconveniently located stadium used in the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

4. APRIL

Highlight: Perhaps the easiest month to decide on the number one thing to happen as Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025 took place over three days in Chiba. It was the first time the convention had taken place in Japan since 2008 and 105,000 fans attended. There were multiple stages, various panels, celebrity autograph and photo opportunities, merchandise aplenty, convention exclusives, big reveals and so much more.

Honorary mention(s): As well as football and rugby matches, there was lunch with a long-time friend at a cheap Chinese restaurant in Shinjuku where the decor includes a giant willy!

5. MAY

Highlight: Our trip to Hiroshima to see my parents-in-law certainly wasn’t a smooth one but it has to still be the number one activity for May. Away from spending time with family I also had a couple of solo outings to watch baseball and football with the latter being at Japan’s newest topflight stadium.

Honorary mention(s): The eighth and final (?) ‘Mission Impossible‘ movie hit the cinemas and I went to see it a couple of times, although I was a little disappointed after the first viewing. It was still good but not great like previous ones. In terms of live sport, I went to see gymnastics, rugby and football, and there was also a really good “May the 4th be with you” event in Shibuya.

6. JUNE

Highlight: After a six-month absence we finally returned to Izu to visit the family holiday home where cold showers, dodgy electricity and an overgrown garden awaited us. In between all the work on the house and the garden there was still a bit of time for some fun with the dog at our favourite local haunts.

Honorary mention(s): The month kicked off with the League One play off final to decide the champions of the top domestic league. It may not have lived up to the excitement of the previous year’s final but was still a great occasion as was watching a wrestling tournament and seeing my team win 3-0 away at Tokyo Verdy.

7. JULY

Highlight: A busy month for being reunited with friends from back home with three of them in quick succession from various periods of my life.

Honorary mention(s): A day trip to Matsumoto in Nagano prefecture was another one of my excessive treats for the year as I visited some deep train station related spots among other things.

8. AUGUST

Highlight: My brother-in-law’s family visited us for a few days in Izu which was wonderful.

Honorary mention(s): As well as a unique American football experience, there was also a return to Omiya to see them play for the first time since the Red Bull takeover which had resulted in a name change and new home shirt colours.

9. SEPTEMBER

Highlight: Another busy month but seeing Muse in concert at Yokohama K-Arena has to be top of the list as I’ve wanted to see them live for a long, long time now.

Honorary mention(s): Normally seeing two sessions at the World Athletics Championships would be the highlight but not in this particular month! There was also a double dose of football, tennis and baseball events as well as a major Star Wars pop up store in Shinjuku.

10. OCTOBER

Highlight: Tennis dominated the month where I went to see four days of action at the 2025 Toray Pan Pacific Open tournament in Ariake.

Honorary mention(s): Oasis in Tokyo would’ve been the highlight if not for the small matter of not having a ticket! Still, I went along with the hype at other Oasis events surrounding the concerts. The other thing of note was the retirement match of one of my favourite female players in Japan, and I even got to meet her afterwards. Not only that but she actually remembered me from a couple of years ago!

11. NOVEMBER

Highlight: Quite difficult to choose a highlight for this month but I’ll go for the Asian Champions League match between Machida Zelvia and Melbourne City. I’ve long wanted to see a match between J-League and A-League clubs and the atmosphere on this occasion was absolutely fantastic.

Honorary mention(s): The Tokyo Deaflympics gave me the opportunity to see a couple of sports including one (taekwondo) I’d never seen before. Elsewhere, there were four other football matches, breaking and tennis events, a couple of Star Wars pop-up shops and a trip into the more hidden depths of Chiba prefecture.

12. DECEMBER

Highlight: Hopefully the highlight is still to come over Christmas week but as I’m writing this in mid-December, I’ll go for watching ‘Back to the Future‘ (1985) in IMAX with my wife as the best moment of the month.

Honorary mention(s): Not much to mention really as there’s been no live sport and I’ve just been getting ready for Christmas and the New Year. It is also really nice to just spend a relaxing weekend at home with my wife and dog too.

Click here to read ‘The Cost of Attending 60+ Sporting Events In Japan This Year’

Click here to read ‘TF Top 10……Star Wars 2025 Events in Japan’

Click here to read ‘TF Top 10……Football Match Day Experiences In 2025 (Part 3)’

Click here to read ‘Original-Style Vending Machines, Cleaning Out The Gutters, Tennis Coaching, Toilet Problems & Some Breathtaking Moments!’