From Thursday, October 15 to Sunday, October 18, 2026, Namba Hiroba (なんば広場), the plaza in front of Nankai Namba Station, will host "CHIMNEY TOWN HALLOWEEN 2026 in NAMBA." The event is organized by NANKAI Co., Ltd. (NANKAI) and co-organized by CHIMNEY TOWN Co., Ltd. (CHIMNEY TOWN) and Meta Osaka Co., Ltd. (Meta Osaka), with Meta Osaka handling planning and operations. The main attraction is an experiential art space, "CHIMNEY TOWN," overseen by King Kong's Akihiro Nishino, in which about 5,000 lanterns and eyeball objects transform Namba Hiroba into a fantastical otherworld available only during the Halloween season.
Ahead of the event, starting Monday, October 5, a train wrapped in an eyeball-themed design and wrapping on the Namba Station grand staircase will be rolled out simultaneously. The "eyeball," the symbol of the event, "wakes up" in various parts of the city, signaling the start of the Halloween project.
Background of the Project
Unlike conventional Halloween celebrations where people dress up and gather, this new Halloween project is built on the concept of the "town" itself dressing up. By breathing life into familiar scenery such as trains, plazas, buildings, and trees, the project aims to create entertainment that uses the whole town as its stage.
NANKAI and Meta Osaka are promoting the "Digital Entertainment City Concept NAMBA" (デジタルエンターテインメントシティ構想NAMBA), announced in February 2025, which aims for a next-generation city of creative experiences where the real and the digital merge. This project is part of bringing that concept to life, linking Namba Hiroba, Namba Station, railway cars, and an XR experience across the whole town of Namba.
The project is also being carried out together with Akihiro Nishino, who created works such as "Poupelle of Chimney Town" (えんとつ町のプペル). The project originated when Nishino came up with the idea of "making the town dress up," starting from Halloween, which is also the setting of his own work.
The effort to bring this idea into a real urban space and turn the whole town into an entertainment space matched the direction of the concept promoted by NANKAI and Meta Osaka, and it launched as a joint project.
The project is positioned as the first step toward the future aim of becoming the world's largest Halloween event project, on a scale of 10 million people, and will share new entertainment experiences from the town of Namba to the world.
Event Overview
The event is a new Halloween project with the concept "The town dresses up." (まちが、仮装する。) The concept draws on the ancient Japanese idea that life resides in all things, giving the scenery of the town itself a new sense of life.
The stage is Namba, a mecca of entertainment where merchants have long gathered and a culture of comedy and theater has grown. For this first installment, the event's symbolic "eyeball" icon will appear in various places around the city, including Namba Hiroba, the Namba Station grand staircase, and railway cars. The event also offers an experiential art space, "CHIMNEY TOWN," overseen by Akihiro Nishino, and an XR experience. Instead of people dressing up, the town dresses up, creating an immersive entertainment experience across the whole of Namba that has not been seen before.
The "Eyeball" Icon Symbolizing the "Awakening of the Town"
The event symbol, the "eyeball," is more than decoration. It expresses the moment when a sleeping town is given life and wakes up. Through trains, the Namba Station grand staircase, and the other elements that make up the town opening their eyes as if they had a will of their own and starting to look around, it conveys the world of the "awakening of the town."
1. The Plaza Dresses Up: Experiential Art Space "CHIMNEY TOWN"
- Dates: Thursday, October 15 to Sunday, October 18, 2026
- Hours: 12:00 PM to 9:00 PM (lanterns lit from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM)
- Venue: Namba Hiroba
- Admission: Free
The visuals in this article are artist's impressions, and some were created using generative AI.
2. The Train Dresses Up: Hyakki Yagyo (百鬼夜行), Special Wrapped Train
- Operating period: From Monday, October 5, 2026 until further notice
- Route: Nankai Line (Namba to Wakayamako and Kansai Airport)
- Train: One 4-car 8300 series set (car numbers 8320-8620-8670-8420)
3. The Station Dresses Up: Hyakki Yagyo (百鬼夜行), Namba Station Grand Staircase Wrapping
- Wrapping period: Monday, October 5 to Sunday, October 18, 2026 (planned)
4. The Ultimate Dress-Up Overlaps With the Town: XR Experience
When visitors put on an MR headset, a virtual world overlaps the cityscape in front of them, creating an immersive experience in which the real town and the virtual world enhance each other. Details of the experience will be announced at a later date.
- Dates and hours: Thursday, October 15 to Sunday, October 18, 1:00 PM to 9:00 PM (planned)
- Location: Namba Hiroba
- Fee: Free (participants are asked to answer a survey)
- Age restriction: None
- Planning and development: U. Co., Ltd. (株式会社U.)
5. Visitor Emotion Analysis Using AI Cameras
AI cameras will be used at the venue to analyze visitors' emotions. By reading visitors' "emotions" and satisfaction from their facial expressions, which have been difficult to quantify, and turning them into data, the event will visualize and evaluate the value of the customer experience that conventional methods such as surveys alone could not capture. The event serves as a proof-of-concept experiment for future business development.
The footage is processed statistically in a form that does not identify individuals and is used with careful attention to privacy.
Organizers and Other Information
- Organizer: NANKAI Co., Ltd.
- Co-organizers: CHIMNEY TOWN Co., Ltd., Meta Osaka Co., Ltd.
- Production and operation: Show Design Co., Ltd. (株式会社ショーデザイン), Actio Corporation (アクティオ株式会社)
- Supported by: Osaka City (大阪市)
About the Crowdfunding
To create and roll out this project, CHIMNEY TOWN Co., Ltd. is running a co-creation crowdfunding campaign that lets supporters build the space together.
Comments From the Representatives
Nobuyuki Okajima (岡嶋 信行), Representative Director, President and CEO, NANKAI Co., Ltd.
NANKAI Co., Ltd. is taking on business creation beyond railways and real estate and working on town development that raises regional value. As part of that effort, together with CHIMNEY TOWN, we are launching this project, which aims to become the world's largest Halloween event, one that 10 million people will visit in the future. What we aim for is town development where, on the way home, people break into smiles and say, "I don't know why, but that was a fun day." Together with a diverse group of players, we will nurture an exciting town. Please keep an eye on this project, which has taken its first step, and on the future developments of Namba, which keeps taking on challenges, and of our company.
Akihiro Nishino (西野 亮廣), President and Representative Director, CHIMNEY TOWN Co., Ltd.
"Let's create the world's largest Halloween festival from Japan." That was how this project began. If the goal is to be the world's largest, the stage has to be not a single facility but a "town." However, public spaces come with all kinds of restrictions. If we settled on the standard motifs everyone knows, such as jack-o'-lanterns, bats, and the colors orange, purple, and black, we would probably draw no complaints even with a whole town as the stage. But something that "draws no complaints from anyone" is sometimes also something that "stays in no one's memory." And there is another problem. It would not show "which town's Halloween this is."
So we turned to the ancient Japanese worldviews of "yaoyorozu no kami" (the eight million gods) and "tsukumogami" (objects that take on a spirit), and wondered whether we could create a "Japanese Halloween" landscape by attaching "eyeballs" to the buildings, trains, stairs, and trees around town and giving them souls. Still, however you look at it, it is a little "creepy." There is no town anywhere in the world that would accept such a challenge, except one: "Osaka."
We are prepared to cause inconvenience and to be scolded. Even so, we sincerely thank everyone at NANKAI who is joining us in this challenge that could be called reckless, and the people of Osaka who find this challenge amusing.
Hideaki Mori (毛利 英昭), Representative Director, Meta Osaka Co., Ltd.
In 2021, when the pandemic had left the streets of Osaka silent and everyone was living through days with no end in sight, I launched a Halloween event as an individual initiative, out of a desire to liven up Osaka somehow.
What I felt even then was that Osaka has no place where people can say, "For Halloween, this is the place." People put on costumes but have nowhere to go. I have long believed the city needs a place where friends can meet up and enjoy themselves. Since then, I had also consulted Akihiro Nishino, and this is an idea I have been nurturing in the hope of giving it shape someday.
Having the whole town become a place to enjoy Halloween on the big stage of Namba Hiroba is, for me, the moment a long-held wish comes true. A new festival is born in Osaka, drawing people from across Japan and around the world. I am deeply honored to be involved in its beginning as Meta Osaka.
