Tanabata Tree Emoji

A bamboo tree hung with colorful paper strips, used for Tanabata (七夕), Japan's Star Festival. Every July 7 (or August 7 in Sendai and much of Tohoku), people write wishes on rectangular papers called tanzaku (短冊) and tie them to live bamboo branches. The bamboo is then floated down a river or burned at the end of the festival, sending the wishes up to the stars.

The festival celebrates a love story older than Japan itself. In the original Chinese legend, adopted by the Japanese imperial court during the Nara period, the weaver princess Orihime (the star Vega) and the cowherd Hikoboshi (the star Altair) are married but neglect their duties. The sky king banishes them to opposite sides of the Amanogawa (天の川, the Milky Way), where they can only meet once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month. A flock of magpies flies in to form a bridge across the river of stars. If it rains that day, the magpies can't build the bridge and the lovers have to wait another year.

🎋 is the emoji for this festival, for making wishes, for the summer sky, and occasionally for anything with bamboo. It's one of the most culturally specific emojis in Unicode and is almost invisible outside Japan.

Approved in Unicode 6.0 (2010) as U+1F38BU+1F38B TANABATA TREE.

🎋 peaks twice on Japanese social media: the first week of July nationwide, then again in early August when Sendai and other northeastern cities hold their Tanabata festivals on the old lunar calendar date.

Inside Japan, the emoji shows up on #七夕, #短冊, and #天の川 posts. Shopping arcades, supermarkets, schools, and train stations set up live bamboo branches where anyone can tie a wish, and photos of these displays dominate July 7.

Outside Japan, 🎋 is one of the least-used emojis in the set. Most Western users don't recognize the Tanabata context and occasionally send it for general 'bamboo' or 'nature' vibes. Anime fans who have watched Makoto Shinkai films (*Your Name*, *Weathering With You*) sometimes pick up the emoji because both films draw on Tanabata's star-crossed-lovers mythology.

A smaller but consistent use: 🎋 appears in 'make a wish' content across the Japanese internet, similar to how Westerners use 🌠 (shooting star) or 🕯️ (birthday candle).

Tanabata arrived in Japan from China in the 8th century as Kikkōden (乞巧奠, 'the festival to plead for skills'), a Nara-period court ritual in which ladies-in-waiting prayed to the star Vega for better weaving, calligraphy, and needlework. The Chinese original, Qixi, dates to at least the Han dynasty (202 BCE to 220 CE) and was already a thousand years old when it reached Japan.

The festival merged with a pre-existing Japanese folk ritual called tanabata-tsume, in which a shamaness wove clothing and placed it on the shore to receive a visiting water deity. The name 'Tanabata' comes from this older ritual, written 棚機 ('loom weaver'), not from the Chinese characters 七夕 ('seventh evening') that are now used for the date.

The court festival spread to commoners during the Edo period (1603-1868), when writing tanzaku and tying them to bamboo became the standard practice. The five-color tanzaku system (blue-green, red, yellow, white, purple) comes from the Chinese five-element theory (wood, fire, earth, metal, water), with purple swapped in for the original black because black is considered unlucky in Japan.

When Japan switched from the lunar to the Gregorian calendar in 1873, most of the country moved Tanabata to July 7 of the new calendar. Sendai and much of Tōhoku kept the old lunar-calendar-equivalent date, which now falls around August 7, which is why the country has two Tanabata dates.

Approved in Unicode 6.0 (2010) as U+1F38BU+1F38B TANABATA TREE. Part of the original Japanese-carrier emoji set from the late 1990s, passed through to Unicode unchanged.

1. 755Tanabata-equivalent festivals recorded in Japan's imperial court (Kikkōden), adopted from Chinese Qixi↗
2. 1608Date Masamune promotes Tanabata celebrations in Sendai to encourage arts among women and children↗
3. 1700Edo-period commoners adopt the tanzaku-and-bamboo tradition still practiced today
4. 1873Japan switches to the Gregorian calendar; most regions move Tanabata to July 7, while Sendai and Tōhoku keep the old date (now August 7)
5. 2010Unicode 6.0 approves U+1F38B TANABATA TREE↗
6. 2016*Your Name* by Makoto Shinkai becomes a global hit, reintroducing Tanabata's star-crossed-lovers mythology to Western audiences↗

July 7 (most of Japan) uses the new calendar date. It falls during the rainy season (tsuyu), which is why the legend includes a rainy-day exception: if it rains, magpies can't build their bridge across the Milky Way and the lovers miss each other. July 7 is when most Japanese Tanabata celebrations happen, and when 🎋 spikes across Japanese social media.

August 7 (Sendai, Tōhoku, parts of Kansai) uses tsuki-okure, the 'month-delayed' calendar that maps old lunar dates to one month later in the Gregorian calendar. Sendai's Tanabata Matsuri (August 6-8) is the biggest in Japan, with about 3,000 bamboo branches hung with paper and silk decorations, some over 10 meters tall. The festival dates to the early Edo period when Date Masamune, first lord of Sendai, started it to encourage the arts among women and children.

The Chinese Qixi Festival is the same story but without tanzaku or bamboo. Chinese celebrations focus on the magpie bridge and the lovers' reunion as a romantic day similar to Valentine's Day. Korean (Chilseok) and Vietnamese (Thất Tịch) versions are closer to the Chinese original.

Outside East Asia, 🎋 is the Japanese emoji for 'make a wish,' and some non-Japanese users adopt it for birthday or New Year wish posts, even though the cultural context is different.

• •Sendai's Tanabata Matsuri displays about 3,000 hand-made bamboo-and-paper streamers along the city's main streets. The biggest ones are over 10 meters tall and weigh several kilograms. The shopping arcades compete every year for the most elaborate design.
• •The name 'Tanabata' doesn't come from the stars. It comes from an older Japanese folk ritual where a shamaness called a tanabata-tsume ('loom weaver') wove cloth for a visiting water deity. When the Chinese star festival arrived in Japan, the two rituals merged, and the older name stuck.
• •The stars are real: Orihime is Vega, the fifth-brightest star in the sky. Hikoboshi is Altair, the twelfth-brightest. Both are visible overhead during summer nights in the Northern Hemisphere, with the Milky Way stretching between them.
• •Tanzaku wishes are collected at the end of the festival and burned or set afloat. The tradition echoes the older hina-nagashi purification ritual behind 🎎, where paper dolls carry misfortunes downstream. Tanzaku carry wishes upstream, so to speak, to the stars.
• •Makoto Shinkai's films Your Name (2016) and Weathering With You (2019) draw heavily on Tanabata's star-crossed-lovers mythology. Both films feature young lovers separated by fantastical forces, reunited briefly, then parted again.
• •The Chinese original, Qixi, dates to at least the Han dynasty (around 200 BCE). The festival is older than the Roman Empire.
• •In Korean (Chilseok), Vietnamese (Thất Tịch), and Chinese (Qixi) tradition, the festival leans romantic, a kind of Valentine's Day. In Japanese Tanabata, the focus shifted to wishes and craft skills during the Nara period and has stayed there.

• •***Your Name* (2016) and *Weathering With You* (2019)**: Makoto Shinkai's two biggest films both lean on Tanabata's star-crossed-lovers mythology. The visual language of the Milky Way, brief reunions, and separations echoes the Orihime-Hikoboshi story deliberately.
• •Anime Tanabata episodes: Nearly every long-running anime has a Tanabata episode where characters write wishes on tanzaku. Love Hina, Sailor Moon, Toradora, My Hero Academia, and dozens more all have one. It's such a standard trope that TV Tropes has a dedicated page.
• •Sendai Tanabata cover footage: Japanese news channels open their August 6 evening broadcasts with aerial drone shots of Sendai's 10-meter streamers every year. The imagery has become so iconic that the festival is one of the country's most-photographed summer events.