30th Marine Day!Event held to commemorate Marine Day 2025

To mark this year’s Marine Day public holiday (July 21, 2025), The Nippon Foundation, the Japanese Cabinet Office’s Headquarters for Ocean Policy, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism held a joint event on July 21 at the Tokyo International Cruise Terminal. In addition to the opening ceremony and a Marine Nation Promotion Merit Awards (Prime Minister’s Commendation) ceremony, the event featured interactive events including a shipboard experience, exhibition booths, presentations, and a stage program intended to give the general public a deeper understanding of and interest in the ocean and ships.

This year marks the 30^th time that Marine Day has been observed, and on this occasion Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko attended the opening ceremony and the Marine Nation Promotion Merit Awards (Prime Minister’s Commendation) ceremony. Marine Day was designated as a public holiday to express gratitude for the ocean’s bounty and wish for the prosperity of the ocean nation of Japan. The Nippon Foundation has been carrying out Umi-to-Nippon Project (The Ocean and Japan Project) activities on Marine Day to increase interest in the ocean, especially among children.

The stage program featured a discussion between The Nippon Foundation Executive Director Mitsuyuki Unno and the author Shin Iyohara, whose “Ai o Tsugu Umi” (roughly “The Sea Inherits Indigo”) won the Naoki Prize for fiction earlier this year. The discussion was titled “Passing on the Ocean Through Stories: Naoki Prize-winning author Shin Iyohara’s thoughts on ‘The Future of the Ocean,’” and dealt with questions including “What does it mean to live together with nature?” and “What can we do to protect the ocean in the future?”.