Vivinavi : Asakusa : (Japan) Asakusa

In the late 1970s, the Asakusa Roku-gu district, which had been the busiest theater district in Japan with many theaters and entertainment facilities, began to show signs of slowing down due to the spread of television. The Asakusa Samba Carnival is said to have begun when comedian Junzaburo Ban proposed the samba.

The Asakusa Samba Carnival started in 1981 with the "Asakusan spirit" of "always bringing new culture to Asakusa," and at first there were few full-fledged samba teams and the event had a strong resemblance to a costume contest, but over the years, more and more people have been adding instruments and costumes to the lineup and pursuing the "samba" spirit. However, as the number of teams pursuing "samba" increased each year, with more and more teams using instruments and costumes, and with the efforts of participating teams modeled after the Rio de Janeiro Carnival, the event has grown into a very high level samba carnival, one of the largest in the northern hemisphere.
Although it is a one-day event, in recent years it has attracted about 500,000 people. ～ The participating samba teams are grouped according to size and other factors at the venue on Bado Dori Kaminarimon Dori, and the contestants compete for victory in a scoring system based on expression, costume, performance, dance, and other criteria.