This year’s “May the 4th be with you” festival of events may not have had a mammoth Celebration Japan event preceding it like last year but there was still a lot of other things going on and I managed to take in as much of it as I could across the country’s three biggest cities (as well as a few extras in Hiroshima) over the space of a fortnight in the Japanese holiday season known as Golden Week.

Going in chronological order we start with my last day of work on April 28th which finished a few hours earlier than usual due to a couple of cancellations. Rather than go home straightaway I cycled seven kilometres to Yurakucho Marion to view the Star Wars Galaxy in Yurakucho exhibit.

Every hour on the hour the famous Seiko Marion clock outside has a truly unique Star Wars themed display for a few minutes. Inside there was the same Nebuta that was present at Celebration Japan 2025 and the Nippon TV Tower exhibit in March. There were also some panel exhibitions showing the timeline of the theatrical releases so far, the history of Star Wars in Japan via old newspaper articles and a display of retro figures provided by Star Case, Tokyo’s best independent Star Wars shop.

I then cycled another eight kilometres eastwards to Tokyo Skytree to visit the special store at Tokyo Solomachi which had a pretty cool entrance as well as a giant Grogu.

A few days later I was in Hiroshima so took the opportunity to visit bb-geek gallery and cafe again which was fantastic. I first visited a few years ago for Star Wars but now I go back each time for the great food, atmosphere and to see the wonderful owner.

Later that evening I stopped by a Uniqlo store in Hiroshima station to purchase one of the four new t-shirt designs which were released that day. This has become something of a tradition in the last few years for me and ‘The Mandalorian & Grogu‘ one I bought (1,990 yen) typically got soiled not long after putting it on the following day when I had to pick up our dog suddenly. His paws were a little dirty so it was stained almost instantly!

As for May the 4th itself, well that actually didn’t include too much as I was busy with family in both Hiroshima and Kyoto that day so it was fairly uneventful on the Star Wars front other than wearing themed socks!

The following day (Revenge of the 5th!) I had a few hours to myself in Kyoto. I could’ve explored the ancient city a bit more and taken in a few temples but instead I took a very quick trip to Osaka to visit the Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS) television studio in Umeda which had a special Star Wars exhibition and pop-up shop.

In terms of actual Star Wars content, there was the final two episodes of ‘Maul – Shadow Lord‘ on Disney+ but I was unable to watch them until I returned to Tokyo a couple of days after they dropped! They were fantastic and the festivities resumed a day later with a trip to Japan’s second biggest city where there was a “May the 4th” collection of exhibits and pop-up shops around various places inside Landmark Plaza and Mark IS in the Minatomirai district of Yokohama.

Up on the 5th floor of the latter is a cinema which showed all 11 of the Star Wars theatrical releases over a fortnight period with the final day (May 7th) including screenings of ‘The Empire Strikes Back‘ (1980) and ‘Return of the Jedi‘ (1983). I saw Episode VI in Hibiya last year so opted for Episode V this time as I had never seen that on the big screen.

I’ve not quite seen all the Star Wars films at the cinema now though as Episode III continues to elude me despite various re-release screenings in the last couple of years! Hopefully next year I’ll have a chance again!

Finally, back in Tokyo I cycled down to Shibuya on May 8th to see the Star Wars Galaxy in Shibuya exhibition at the centrally located Tsutaya.

The ground floor is full of character statues, big screens and wall display of all the Japanese posters for every single Star Wars movie including the two Ewoks TV films from the mid-80s. This year there is actually a special themed cafe on the 7th floor but I instead headed down to the fairly spacious pop-up store which was absolutely heaving with tourists taking advantage of the weak yen to purchase many Japan-only items.

A major part of all the aforementioned events was promoting the forthcoming ‘Mandalorian & Grogu‘ movie which is released on May 22nd. There will be a post on Tokyo Fox just after that release date which goes more into details about some of the above events, particularly the ones in Osaka, Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as my experience of seeing a new Star Wars film in a cinema for the first time in 6.5 years!

Click here to read ‘2008 Vs. 2025: How Did These 2 Star Wars Celebration Japan Conventions Differ?’

Click here to read ‘This Is the Way to Put on a Free Star Wars Mandalorian & Grogu Exhibition!’

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

Click here to read ‘The Popularity of Star Wars Pop-Up Shops Popping Up in Tokyo Continues but Why?!’

Click here to read ‘This Year’s “May The 4th Be with You” Festivities in Tokyo Were the Best Yet!’