Also called Doll's Day or Girls' Day, Hinamatsuri is celebrated on March 3. Platforms covered with a red carpet display a set of ornamental dolls representing the Emperor, Empress, attendants and musicians in traditional court dress of the Heian period (last division of classical Japanese history, from 794 to 1159).

Hinamatsuri traces its origins to an ancient custom called hina-nagashi ("doll floating"), in which paper dolls are set afloat on a boat and sent down a river to the sea, supposedly taking troubles and bad spirits away with them.

Families generally start to display the dolls in February and take them down immediately after the festival. Superstition says that leaving the dolls past March 4 will result in a late marriage for their daughters.