This busy Tokyo neighborhood draws thousands of Halloween visitors. Some locals have had enough of the party

By Lilit Marcus, CNN, and Keiichiro Kowaguchi

Tokyo (CNN) — More than 500,000 people march, walk, skateboard and dance across Shibuya Crossing every day. As the world’s busiest and most famous intersection, it’s an essential Tokyo tourist stop.

Many places around the world would love to have a “must visit” destination of this cachet. But Shibuya, one of the city’s most popular neighborhoods, is not so sure it wants to be one of them.

Amid complaints of too many tourists and bad behavior, which have led to clashes between residents and visitors, Shibuya’s local government has been trying to change the district’s fashionable reputation.

The neighborhood has long been considered the ultimate spot for young people to celebrate Halloween in Japan. In the early 2010s, Shibuya became popular with young families whose kids wanted to dress up in cute costumes. But adults wanted to get in on the fun, too. In 2017, the neighborhood actively promoted “ShibuHallo” as a community event.

Shibuya’s central location and popularity with foreigners — it has more than 1,000 registered hotels and other accommodations — meant the party got bigger every year.

Now, a decade after “ShibuHallo,” many Shibuya locals want to put the genie back in the bottle.

Tokyo is made up of 23 smaller cities, or wards, each with its own leaders, rules and regulations. Ken Hasebe has been the mayor of Shibuya since 2015, and Halloween celebrations have become a bête noire of his administration.

This year, Shibuya isn’t pushing ShibuHallo. They’re promoting a different slogan aimed at preventing public disturbances: “Goodbye Bad Halloween.”

From novelty to nuisance

After Japan reopened post-pandemic, tourism surged — and hasn’t stopped. Mount Fuji’s hiking trails, Niseko’s ski slopes, and Nara’s deer park all began to sag under the weight of overtourism.

In 2025, Japan welcomed more than 40 million foreign visitors — about five times as many as in 2012.

Amid the increased number of travelers, cultural clashes and misunderstandings have grown more common.

For example, visitors to Kyoto’s historic Gion neighborhood were so often seen chasing, harassing, and photographing the city’s famous geishas that locals coined the term “geisha paparazzi.” The city put up signage in multiple languages asking tourists to behave themselves around the women, but not everyone paid heed. Some residents took matters into their own hands, chasing away badly behaved visitors or blocking off private roads.

In the capital, though, it’s Halloween, a holiday associated with all things spooky and scary, that has become a real-life nightmare.

During Hasebe’s tenure as mayor, Shibuya City’s Halloween celebration has gone from being a neighborhood gathering to an international event. With that came all kinds of new problems: public urination, noise complaints, broken bottles in the street and building damage, among others.

In 2018, Hasebe welcomed visitors to the area but urged them to enjoy Halloween without causing inconvenience to others.

Although there were hiccups along the way, including a handful of arrests, it seemed like Shibuya City’s polite requests might work to balance a love of dressing up and having fun with a respect for one’s neighbors. But on October 29, 2022, the stakes became much higher.

A tragedy next door

Two days before Halloween 2022, celebrations were in full swing in Itaewon, the hipster-filled neighborhood in Seoul, South Korea. Some 100,000 people descended on the neighborhood, causing human traffic jams in the narrow streets. Then, tragedy struck — as more and more revelers tried to cram into a popular alleyway, it became a pressure point. People began to collapse, and without a way to quickly exit they began to pile up on top of each other. Some suffocated. Others were crushed. In all, 154 people — mostly Koreans in their 20s and 30s – died that night.

The Itaewon news sent shockwaves around the world. Other cities began to wonder if a similar disaster could happen in their own streets. In Shibuya, Halloween festivities were already a nuisance — but now, officials realized there was more to worry about than empty bottles and loud music.

Hasebe wrote a public note expressing his condolences for the Itaewon tragedy, adding, “the crowdedness around Shibuya station on the weekend makes us worry that a similar accident might happen in Shibuya, too.”

In addition, the mayor made public statements asking people not to come to Shibuya for Halloween. While about 15,000 people still showed up in 2023, it was significantly lower than the crowds of 60,000 or so in previous years. In 2024, crowds were about 20,000. Hasebe estimates that 70-80% of them are international travelers.

Over the years, the government has made incremental changes during Halloween week, such as putting up fences around the statue of the famously loyal dog Hachiko — which often has lines of visitors waiting to snap selfies — and asking local shops not to sell alcohol. This year is no exception, with extra security guards set to be stationed at 10 locations around Shibuya during the Halloween weekend.

But some Shibuya business owners say the Halloween restrictions hurt them financially. Others complain that they face more issues from local law enforcement than they do from would-be partiers.

One izakaya owner told CNN, “Early in the evening there are more police vehicles and officers than people in costume. Police vehicles line up in front of the restaurant, making it impossible to park delivery vehicles.” She asked that her name not be used because she feared repercussions against her business.

She adds that her regulars, who are Shibuya office workers, tend to go home early on Halloween to avoid the chaos. She also said that her restaurant — which, while still in the neighborhood, is off the main drag — has “never” been harmed by Halloween partying. For her, the biggest challenge is navigating the crowds in order to make it to the Shibuya Station and not miss the last train of the night, which departs around midnight.

Some feel the restrictions don’t go far enough.

Tatsuji Suzuki, chairman of the busy Center Gai shopping street, says that while there are more rules in place, such as a 2,000 yen ($13) fine for littering, “there are no penalties.” Without rigorous enforcement, he says, there’s no reason for people to change their behavior.

Rather than expect Shibuya City to help, Suzuki says he and his fellow association members decided to work together. “The area once had poor public safety and few rules. Fearing the shopping street would stop functioning if visitors stayed away, the association took action. Because the shopping street acted first, the ward joined in, creating a united front to protect the area.”

Now, street cleaning on Center Gai happens every day, rain or shine, and a crime-prevention unit prowls the area.

Shibuya has also closed off some public toilets and changing areas in the train station so they can’t be overtaken by partiers getting into their costumes. All-caps posters plastered around the district blare NO LOITERING and NO OBSTRUCTING.

For Suzuki, the ultimate goal would be turning October 31 back into just another regular day on the calendar. He tells CNN that Halloween has already begun to fall back out of favor with local Japanese, with fewer people getting into the spirit every year.

“It’s reached the point where people feel embarrassed to dress up.”

Mayor Hasebe, whose annual Halloween campaigns focus on asking people to mind their manners, suggests an alternative: Celebrate indoors.

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