This Month on Maction Planet – February 2026

February 2026 was the kind of month that reminds you why you do this. It began before dawn at the Toyosu tuna auction and barely slowed down from there — eight days guiding Effie and Joseph across Tokyo, Hakone, and Kyoto; a VIP Disney experience; the Chichibu Whisky Matsuri; a gala dinner at the Mori Art Museum; a piano recital at Suntory Hall; craft brewing in Tokyo; sake in Kawagoe’s Little Edo; and the release of the Kanpai Planet: The First Five Years. Plus Maction Planet’s 9th anniversary. February did not disappoint.

Featured image: At Tokyo Disneyland on the 12th, I ran into an old acquaintance. Scrooge McDuck and I have history. We had a lot to catch up on. Mostly business.

The month began with me meeting Effie and Joseph at Haneda airport to begin 8 days of adventures around Japan.

The alarms went off before dawn on 2 February. The Toyosu tuna auction is one of the most extraordinary spectacles in food – rows of fresh and frozen bluefin tuna laid out on the auction floor while licensed buyers move between them, scribbling notes before the bidding begins at speed.

Later that same morning, it was time to introduce Joseph to Akihabara. The Electric Town lives up to its name – for a young visitor experiencing it for the first time, the sheer visual overload is half the fun. Joseph’s expression says the rest.

After too many Tokyo experiences to list, the 4th took us to Hakone, where, inside the Open-Air Museum, Joseph stood before the Symphonic Sculpture by French stained-glass artist Gabriel Loire – an 18-metre tower whose interior spiral staircase is ringed floor to ceiling with around 700 pieces of coloured glass. The light through those fragments has been doing its work since the sculpture was installed in 1975.

Kyoto’s newest landmark delivered on 5 February. teamLab Biovortex Kyoto opened in October 2025 as the collective’s largest exhibition in Japan, spanning over 10,000 square metres. The Infinite Crystal World installation – thousands of LED lights suspended in a mirrored room – is a teamLab staple. Here, it transformed two people in white hoodies into part of the artwork.

Threading through the thousands of vermilion torii gates at Fushimi Inari Taisha on the 6th, I spotted something that stopped me in my tracks: a gate donated by 株式会社MACS – MACS Corporation. Loyal Maction Planet fans have seen this one before. I have no affiliation with any corporation of that name, but I have the photo (again) and I’m claiming it (again).

Kyoto woke up under snow on 8 February – rare enough to be exciting and photoworthy!

A few hours later that same morning, it was time to say goodbye to Effie and Joseph at Haneda Airport.

Terminal 2 was wearing its seasonal decorations: plum blossoms in the foreground and Godzilla looming over the FDO Market Place in the background, which is either a vivid metaphor or just a very normal Sunday in Japan. The big guy was doing his best to cheer me up as seeing Effie and Joseph go made me very sad. They have assured me they willbe back.

Kanpai Planet: The First 5 Years was released on 10 February. Five years earlier, on 9 February 2021, in a small Tokyo apartment, I hit record on a smartphone with two bottles of Foo Fighters sake and no plan. What followed was five years of Japanese whisky, sake, shochu, gin, vodka, Japan-exclusive Scotch, Kit Kats, and much more besides – from selecting casks at Kanosuke Distillery to breaking world exclusives with the rarest Japanese whiskies, interviewing legends like Dave Broom, sake brewing on Sado Island, gin reviews at the House of KI NO BI, and somehow, inevitably, Godzilla Energy Drinks. The documentary tells that story: over 8,800 subscribers, 500,000 views, 81 long-form videos, and one community built from scratch.

On 12 and 13 February I guided Seda and Athena on their VIP experience across both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. It was a privilege to share this one with these amazing people. Here we are on Day 2 when Mr. Incredible photobombed proceedings with his customary enthusiasm.

14 February, brought the night market that takes place on the eve of the Chichibu Whisky Matsuri – and with it, some of the best impromptu conversation in the whisky world. Here I am with the Akimoto-san, owner of Bar Fishborn in Obihiro, Hokkaido.

The main event arrived on the 15th. The Chichibu Whisky Matsuri is held annually in Chichibu. As always it is hard to pick one photo to sum up the event, so I will just go with what I usually do! The man I’m pointing at needs no introduction to whisky drammers or Kanpai Planet fans: Ichiro Akuto, founder of Chichibu Distillery and Venture Whisky.

On the 19th, I attended the European Sake Tasting Night at Premium Sake Pub Gashue in Tokyo – European sake, poured in Tokyo, not something you see every day. Organised by Heather Denny of Sake Europe Inc. with support from Harald DeRopp, the evening featured producers from across the continent: Kanpai London and Sparkling Sake from the UK, WAKAZE and Sake de Bordeaux from France, Reigen Fermentation from Berlin, Sake Wien from Vienna, Sho Shin from the Netherlands, and Yama Sake from Switzerland, among others. There was even a surprise visit from Suwaizumi, joining us from Tottori with special pours in hand! Harald and I are holding up Kanpai London’s KURA – a 2024 Sherry Barrel Honjozo-shu – which tells you something about where my loyalties lay that evening! Some of the producers I had encountered before; others were entirely new to me. Tasting them side by side made for a genuinely illuminating night.

20 February marked nine years since Maction Planet’s website first opened for business. Nine years of bespoke tours and extraordinary guests, – the kind of connections that make this work genuinely special. Some guests have now been on their fifth, sixth, seventh tour. The city keeps changing; the curiosity of the people who come to explore it never does. Everything about what Maction Planet has become is covered in the anniversary post – you can read it here. Here’s to the next nine!

On the evening of 20 February, Fukuoka City Tourism hosted the Feel Fukuoka Event – Yatai Night Market Visualiser at the AnyMind Japan Office on the 31st floor of Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, organised in partnership with Tokyo Weekender. Designed for international media, foreign residents, and travel professionals, the event was built around Fukuoka’s pitch as the centrepiece of Western Japan’s emerging “West Golden Route” – and it made a compelling case. The presentation, under the banner Fukuoka: Beyond the Familiar – The Emerging Heart of Asia, covered a city with world-class ramen, vibrant yatai street food culture, compact walkability, and an energy that genuinely distinguishes it from anywhere else in Japan… as every guest we have taken there understands personally!

The next day I attended the piano recital of Aimi Kobayashi at Suntory Hall in Akasaka. Born in 1995 in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Kobayashi won fourth prize at the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition in 2021 and is widely regarded as one of the most sought-after pianists of her generation in Japan. Her programme that evening spanned Ravel, Schumann, and Chopin plus, wait for it, FOUR encores!

The next few days saw me working hard on the next Kanpai Planet video, out mid-March.

The 26th began on an empty Tokyo Metro carriage. Some of the best thinking happens before Tokyo finds its feet.

The deep pink blooms framing this shot are kawazu-zakura (河津桜) – a natural hybrid that earns its place as Honshu’s earliest-flowering cherry variety, typically peaking weeks before the Somei Yoshino crowds arrive. On 26 February, they were still going strong, which made for a fine backdrop for a photo with Chris and Bill. Chris had made the trip to Tokyo with a specific goal in mind: the Tokyo Marathon on 1 March, one of the six World Marathon Majors and a race that draws 38,500 runners through the heart of the city.

That evening brought the Mori Art Museum Gala Dinner in Roppongi. Among the works on offer at auction was lot 05: Endless Line by Chiharu Shiota – a 2025 piece in thread on canvas by one of the most significant artists working today. Born in Osaka in 1972, Shiota lives and works in Berlin and has built an international reputation for her extraordinary thread installations wich have been featured before on the Maction Planet blog. She create immersive webs of red or black thread that seem to trap objects, memories, and absence in physical form.

At Sakamichi Brewing on the 27th, with head brewer Matthew and David Boyle of Audience Strategies, who was in Japan for the week, the mood was, as ever, excellent. Sakamichi is doing some of the most interesting craft brewing work in the city, and getting a look at the operation is always a pleasure.

February closed on the 28th with a tour of Koedo Kagamiyama Brewing in Kawagoe – the only sake brewery in Kura no Machi – organised by Japan’s National Tax Agency as part of their sake promotion programme. The centrepiece was a 90-minute brewing experience: shovelling 170 kilograms of steaming rice, rotating positions every seven minutes, then entering the koji room – a 40°C sealed chamber that outsiders almost never see during brewing season. A privilege, in every sense.

And finally… on 4 March, I will be in Sydney, Australia hosting two whisky tastings at Bar Besuto. The 20:30 sitting has sold out, but the 18:00 sitting still has spaces available. Book here!

Maction Planet runs bespoke Private Tours and Experiences in Tokyo, and beyond. To book yours, or to purchase a gift card, contact us at info@mactionplanet.com

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