Any self-respecting anime has to have a festival episode. If it’s set in Japan and the story can allow for any degree of downtime, there’s no excuse not to dress up the characters in colorful yukata and send them to a festival (known as a “matsuri” in Japanese) to eat junk food and play carnival games.

This Halloween season, we wanted to go over some of our favorite matsuri in anime. They range from fun little diversions to major aspects of the story. Let’s get in our yukatas and enjoy!