If you want to have a gay old time in Tokyo, there’s no better event to crash than Tokyo Rainbow Pride. Last Sunday we hopped on a train to Harajuku and made our way to Yoyogi Park, where the participants congregated post-parade to watch the performances, browse the booths and take lots of photos of the entire affair. According to the organisers, 2,100 people marched in this year’s parade, and a total of 12,000 visitors showed up to the festival – almost three times as many as last year.

Something you should know about Tokyo Rainbow Pride: the rainbow-striped red animal wandering about in the park is a squirrel, and it is the official mascot of this event. Perhaps the organisers decided it would be amusing to throw in an obscure reference to an Ebichu word game.

The rainbows don’t end with the squirrel, of course – one merely takes the rainbow as a starting point, and you end with sparkles, spangles, and enough makeup to last a Tokyo ojousama for a year.

In addition to fabulous drag queens and all manner of curious costumes, companies such as Tenga were hawking their products (the Egg, for instance, an ad for which went viral on YouTube a while ago), while other booths were there to promote sexual health and other LGBT-themed events taking place during Golden Week. Greenpeace was there, as were several embassies – the Israeli embassy, for instance, distributed fans and little bags of tea to all festival-goers.

Stage performers included Harp and Soul, an all-girl singing quartet, traditional Okinawan dances and idol groups – most notably, gay idol group Nijigumi Fights and NSM 48. NSM 48 (that’s National Sexual Minorities to you and me) are, unsurprisingly, an AKB spin-off of sorts, and they do not actually have 48 members. Instead of just dancing to AKB songs, they will also soon be releasing some original material. They’ll be performing at Nagoya Lesbian + Gay Revolution in June, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Keeping true to Tokyo Rainbow Pride’s creed of being inclusive, a sign language interpreter was also stationed onstage so that the performances and conversations taking place onstage were accessible to everyone.

Tokyo Rainbow Pride was just the start of Golden Week – with many other rainbow-themed events taking place in Tokyo all the way till May 6th, you can still get your dose of pride and show your support for a good cause. For a complete list of events, have a look at their website.

Official website
Further reading: Tokyo Gets Double Dose of Gay Pride for 2012