Japanese Kazoedoshi and Yakudoshi: Counting Age and the Unlucky Years

The core idea: kazoedoshi counts calendar years, not birthdays

Man-nenrei (満年齢), your actual age, counts completed years: zero at birth, one more on each birthday. Man means full, so man sanjū-go-sai is literally 'a full thirty-five years'. Kazoedoshi (数え年), literally 'counted years', counts the calendar years your life has touched. The year of your birth is the first, so you are one at birth, and on each New Year's Day, ganjitsu, everyone moves up together.

The diagram follows a baby born on 1 July 2025. She is one in kazoedoshi at birth and two on 1 January 2026, at six months old. Her actual age goes up on each birthday, so the gap between the counts is two from New Year until the birthday and one after it. A baby born on 31 December would be two the next morning.

UnihongoCulture and etiquette

おばあちゃん、何なん歳さいになったの？Grandma, how old are you now?

Where each count is used

Most of daily life runs on man-nenrei; the old count survives where tradition is involved. At setsubun in February, a father is handing out the roasted beans.

The pattern follows the core idea: customs tied to the calendar year keep the old count; anything tied to birthdays or the law uses the new one.

Why Japan switched: the laws of 1902 and 1950

Officially, Japan has counted actual age since the Meiji era; the law of 1902 still in force says simply that age is counted from the day of birth. Everyday speech largely ignored it for almost fifty years. In 1949 a second, very short law followed, Nenrei no tonaekata ni kansuru hōritsu, literally the 'Act on how ages are called', in force from 1 January 1950. It asks citizens to make a habit of the legal count and requires public bodies to use it.

There is no penalty in it. The switch came gradually, as schools, offices and newspapers used actual age and people followed, which is why older relatives still slip into kazoe de... without thinking. On any form, the age box means actual age, as a ward office clerk will remind you.

How age is talked about today

In ordinary conversation nobody adds man: sanjū-go-sai desu is understood as actual age. The qualifiers appear only when both counts are in play: kazoe de, by the old count, and man de, by actual age. Expect them at shrines, at family ceremonies and from older relatives. Another phrase you will hear is kotoshi de, as of this year, which gives the age you reach during the calendar year: kotoshi de yonjūichi ni narimasu, I turn forty-one this year.

Hayaumare, literally 'early-born', means someone born between 1 January and 1 April, who is in the school year above others born in the same calendar year. It matters at school and not at all in kazoedoshi, where the calendar year is all that counts. Two colleagues are chatting at lunch.

Yakudoshi: the unlucky years

Yakudoshi (厄年) are ages believed to bring misfortune, and they are set in kazoedoshi. The list most shrines use gives men 25, 42 and 61 and women 19, 33 and 37, with 61 often listed for women too. Each of these is the honyaku, the main year, with a year either side: maeyaku, the year before, and atoyaku, the year after. Two ages carry extra weight as taiyaku, the great unlucky years: 42 for men and 33 for women.

Why these ages? The popular explanation is wordplay: 42 can be read shi-ni, like shini, dying, and 33 san-zan, like sanzan, dreadful. The Association of Shinto Shrines gives an older view: yakudoshi were once honourable ages at which you took on a role, also pronounced yaku (役), in shrine festivals, and had to keep yourself ritually pure. Either way, the ages fall at turning points in adult life.

UnihongoCulture and etiquette

厄年やくどしって、気きにしますか。Do you pay attention to unlucky years?

Yakubarai: what happens at the shrine

The response to a yakudoshi is a purification: yakubarai at a shrine, yakuyoke at a temple, though people use both words loosely. Many go between New Year and setsubun on 3 February, because in the old calendar the year turned at the start of spring, but shrines stress there is no deadline.

At a shrine you fill in a form with your name, address and date of birth, pay the fee, hatsuho-ryō, literally a fee of 'first ears of rice', and wait to be called. A priest purifies the group, reads a prayer that includes your names, and a sprig of sacred sakaki, a tamagushi, is offered. You leave with an ofuda talisman. At some temples, such as Kawasaki Daishi, yakuyoke is a goma fire ritual. Fees are posted at reception; wear tidy clothes and socks, since you may remove your shoes. General shrine manners have a separate guide. The scene is the reception desk in January.

Beyond the basics: when shrines and temples disagree

Even the Association of Shinto Shrines notes that ages differ a little by region. Kawasaki Daishi, one of the best-known temples for yakuyoke, uses the age you reach during the year instead, with 25 and 42 for men, 19 and 33 for women and 60 for both. So in 2026 a man born in 1985 is in his honyaku at most shrines but in his maeyaku by that temple's table. Some shrines add ages such as 4 or 13, and many also offer protection from happō-fusagari, a separate bad-direction year from nine-star fortune-telling.

The practical rule: find the table of the place you will visit, posted at the entrance and online, and go by that. Tables usually give birth years by era, so know yours: 1985 is Shōwa 60, 2002 is Heisei 14. A man is phoning a temple to check.

The 2026 table of the Association of Shinto Shrines, in kazoedoshi. For 2027, add one to every birth year.

Common mistakes with kazoedoshi and yakudoshi

Looking up yakudoshi with your actual age. The cause is habit: every form asks for man-nenrei. Most shrine tables are in kazoedoshi, so add one or two, or simply find your birth year in the table.

Thinking a late or early birthday changes the answer. In kazoedoshi everyone born in the same calendar year has the same age, so hayaumare and December birthdays make no difference.

Treating yakudoshi as a ban on big decisions. The cause is the word unlucky; shrines themselves say nothing is forbidden, and plenty of people marry or move in these years.

Assuming yakubarai must happen before setsubun. That is the most popular time, not a rule.