Things to do this week in Tokyo

Thursday 30

Grand Recipes of Love Gala Party
The Grand Hyatt Tokyo marks its 10th anniversary with a glitzy black-tie gala, featuring a live cooking station dinner and music from The Bootleg Beatles, followed by a disco session that keeps boogieing 'til midnight. Read more

Richard Pinhas
Richard Pinhas' explorations in guitar and electronics have made him an icon in avant-rock circles, and this date with fellow voyagers Keiji Haino, Merzbow and Tatsuya Yoshida is a mouth-watering prospect. Read more

Tyler, The Creator with Earl Sweatshirt
A$AP Rocky's Japan tour may have been postponed, but you can catch up with another hype-courting rapper this evening, as the lynchpin of LA's Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All collective hits Liquidroom. Read more

Irma Thomas
The Grammy-winning 'Soul Queen of New Orleans' – who started her career aged 13, and whose 1962 single, 'It's Raining', was revived by Jim Jarmusch in Down By Law – stretches her impressive lungs at Billboard Live. Read more

Friday 31

Komazawa Oktoberfest 2013
The onslaught continues: if you managed to miss the Oktoberfests held in Odaiba and Hibiya Park earlier in the month, you can enjoy some Munich-style boozing in Komazawa Olympic Park instead, starting today. Read more

Raffaello
It's been billed as the first large-scale show of Raphael's work ever to be held outside Europe... and it finishes on Sunday. Beat the last-minute crowds by heading to Raffaello today, when it stays open until 8pm. Read more

Bakuon Film Festival 2013
Tokyo's noisiest film festival returns to Kichijoji Baus Theater for another fortnight of 'explosions of sound', starting tonight with a screening of Michael Camino's much-maligned 1980 western, Heaven's Gate. Read more

Cassandra Wilson
Expect to hear songs both old and new as New Orleans jazz singer Cassandra Wilson kicks off a three-night residency at the Blue Note, alongside regular foils including Gregoire Maret, Brandon Ross and Mino Cinelu. Read more

Theo Berndt
Swedish five-piece Theo Berndt bring their jaunty, Los Campesinos-esque indie pop to O-Nest for the final date of their debut Japan tour, with support from blog-approved locals Moscow Club and Teen Runnings. Read more

Hair
Four decades after a homegrown (and heavily redacted) production of hippy musical Hair scandalised the Japanese public, the Broadway version arrives here for the first time – and in a Tony-winning revival, at that. Read more

Party Jam
Veteran crate-digger Muro is the special guest at this eclectic bash at Air, where he'll be kicking out the jams alongside DJs Daruma and Jommy, with some added help from rapper Dabo and dance crew Bigdogss. Read more

Midnight Thing
Dust off your dancing shoes, head to Nakano's Heavy Sick Zero and get ready to testify, as adept selectors including Waterdamage, Bozmori and Couta spin wall-to-wall soul hits from the 1970s and 1980s. Read more

Ricardo Villalobos x Zip
They're two of the bigger DJ names appearing at this weekend's Taico Club fest, but you don't have to go to Nagano to hear Ricardo Villalobos and Zip: they're playing back-to-back in an all-night session at Womb. Read more

Mitsuaki Iwago: Go With Cats
Well-known wildlife photographer Mitsuaki Iwago latches onto one of the internet's favourite memes for his latest exhibition, which collects 222 images from his many encounters with the feline kind. Read more

Oblivion
Post-apocalyptic sci-fi seems to be big this year, but if you can't wait for the upcoming After Earth, you can make do with this lavish effort from Tron director Joseph Kosinski, starring a certain Mr Cruise. Read more

Saturday 1

Big Beach Festival ’13
The Japanese offshoot of Fatboy Slim's original Brighton beach party returns to the shores of not-so-scenic Makuhari for another dose of bikinis and big beats, with Fatboy himself presiding over a stellar DJ lineup. Read more

Eco Life Fair 2013
Learn about environmental initiatives and meet some ‘eco idols’ at this government-sponsored festival in Yoyogi Park, a low-key antidote to the crowds and clamour of the recent Thai and Jamaica festivals. Read more

Great Japan Beer Festival 2013
It's the highlight of the year for Tokyo's hop heads: an afternoon of hardcore tasting, with over 100 varieties of craft beer on offer and the kinds of crowds you might expect on the Yamanote Line during rush hour. Read more

Nishi-Ogi Cha Sampo
Take a tea-fuelled stroll around the ever-intriguing neighbourhood of Nishi-Ogikubo in this weekend-long event, in which nearly 70 shops and galleries will be giving a complimentary cuppa to all visitors. Read more

Daido Moriyama 1965~
Gallery 916 co-curator Yoshihiko Ueda selects 70 key images from the oeuvre of fellow photographer Daido Moriyama, that great documenter of Japan's post-war urban wildlife, for a new show starting today. Read more

Taico Club ’13
One of our festival highlights of 2012, Taico Club returns to Nagano for a stamina-testing day and night of techno, indie and sonic experimentation, starring Clark, Prefuse 73, Ricardo Villalobos and many more. Read more

Envy
With Envy, it's always got to be epic. The post-hardcore quintet are marking their 20th anniversary by releasing a mammoth 14-record box set, and this Liquidroom show promises to be only marginally less exhausting. Read more

Big Beach Festival ’13 Official After Party
If you'd rather hear this year's Big Beach DJs in a more conventional club setting, head to the after party at Ageha for sets from Basement Jaxx, Sasha, Erol Alkan, Maya Jane Coles, Nervo and Shinichi Osawa. Read more

Circoloco Lifestyle
In what must qualify as an unofficial Big Beach after party of sorts, fellow Ibiza veterans Ellen Allien, Damian Lazarus and System of Sound move the action from Makuhari to Womb to conjure up some Circoloco vibes. Read more

Up Beat! 10th Anniversary
What's a Saturday night party without a few pyrotechnics? Expect some awesome turntable trickery at Club Asia, courtesy of five-time DMC world team champs Kireek and last year's overall DMC winner, Izoh. Read more

All-Night Extreme Cinema
Shin-Bungeiza's latest all-nighter opts for some in-yer-face offerings, including welcome repeat screenings of po-mo horror The Cabin in the Woods and bone-crunching Indonesian actioner The Raid: Redemption. Read more

Sunday 2

Doglegs fundraiser party
Watch fighters from Tokyo's ‘super handicapped pro-wrestling’ group in action at Las Chicas this evening, at a fundraiser party for expat filmmaker Heath Cozens' eponymous Doglegs documentary. Read more

Tokyo Camp 2013
There's no camping involved at this all-day gig at Liquidroom, but you can look forward to some jerky, energetic indie rock from the likes of Kaisoku Tokyo, Keytalk and Suiseinoboaz, plus hip hop from Simi Lab. Read more

Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir
As Laurent Bouzereau's Polanski doc opens in Japan, Theatre Image Forum is using the opportunity to revisit some of the Polish-French filmmaker's earlier works, including a new print of Rosemary's Baby. Read more

Design Ah!
After nearly four months of teaching young minds to 'determine the adequacy of the things around us', this thoroughly engrossing, hands-on show at Roppongi's 21_21 Design Sight finally wraps up today. Read more

Sacred Treasures from Shinto Shrines
Today is also your last chance to catch Tokyo National Museum's aptly titled ‘Grand Exhibition’ of works from shrines throughout Japan, including 160 designated National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties. Read more

New 10am Film Festival
If you're a fan of classic Westerns, it's worth getting up early and heading to Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills for a date with John Wayne's Sheriff John T Chance in Rio Bravo, this week's 10am Film Festival offering. Read more

4th AQFF Asian Queer Film Festival
This biennial festival of LGBT-related films from around Asia wraps up today with an English-subtitled screening of One Night and Two Days, a trio of shorts by South Korean gay cinema pioneer Lee Song Hee-Il. Read more

Locust spaghetti at Absente
We thought Lotteria's ramen burger would be the strangest food we saw all month, but apparently not: Kinshicho restaurant Absente has just launched a new peperoncino spaghetti topped with locusts. Tasty. Read more