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In Japan, Christmas now comes with butterbeer, house scarves, and carefully curated selfie spots. As the holiday lights flip on across Tokyo, Harry Potter fans are turning December into a full-blown Wizarding World festival, powered by a uniquely Japanese style of devotion known as oshikatsu—“support activities” for your favorite character or franchise.
That passion has helped the series rack up more than ¥110 billion (about $700 million) in cumulative box-office revenue in Japan and turned annual TV broadcasts into a three-generation ritual, according to Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo vice president Sachiko Yamazaki, via The Japan Times.
‘Hogwarts in the Snow’ Meets KFC Christmas
Japan doesn’t have centuries of Christmas tradition, but it does have KFC party buckets, illumination walks, and now, Hogwarts in the snow. Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo has leaned hard into the seasonal mood, scaling up its winter event with floating candles, Christmas trees, and snow-dusted Great Hall sets for the 2025–26 season, inviting fans to step straight into the films’ most festive moments.
The expanded experience, detailed by the studio tour’s own materials, turns December into a pilgrimage month for fans who plan outfits, themed snacks, and photo routes with near-religious care—classic oshikatsu behavior. Visitors can wander through snowy Diagon Alley or pose under enchanted mistletoe, echoing similar events in London but adapted to Japan’s love of immersive, photo-friendly spaces. More information on the winter offerings is available at Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo.
It’s part of a wider Potter merch and experience boom in the country, from character cafés and pop-up shops to LEGO’s bookshelf-ready builds. That appetite fits neatly alongside global trends in collectible fandom, including products like LEGO’s Platform 9¾ book nook, which we covered in detail in our look at how the LEGO Harry Potter book nook turns shelves into portals.
Global Wizarding World, Local Rituals
Japan’s Christmas Potter craze is landing just as the franchise enters a new phase worldwide. J.K. Rowling continues publishing through her crime series written as Robert Galbraith, with Strike novels such as The Running Grave (2023) and 2025’s The Hallmarked Man keeping her in regular print rotation, per bibliographic listings.
On screen, HBO’s page-faithful Harry Potter TV reboot—set to debut in 2026 with Rowling working closely with the writers, according to People—is expected to send a fresh wave of viewers back to both the books and the films. Audio and live productions are booming too, from full-cast audio epics to the ongoing touring productions of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
The publishing world is also watching how fan culture reshapes IP. One notable example is Alchemised, a mainstream novel that grew out of Harry Potter fan fiction, highlighting a broader “pull-to-pub” trend in which online fanfic migrates into traditional publishing, as reported by The Week.
Japan’s oshikatsu Christmas is another sign that Potter isn’t just a nostalgic book series—it’s a living ritual fans keep reinventing. From Tokyo’s snow-dusted Great Hall to HBO’s coming reboot, the Wizarding World continues to find new ways to embed itself in readers’ lives, one holiday tradition at a time. For more on where the franchise goes next on TV, revisit our guide to what we know about HBO’s new Harry Potter series.
