Memorial Service Date Calculator

How to use

Choose a date of death, then choose how the seventh-day services are counted: Kanto style, where the day of death itself is day 1, or Kansai style, where the day before it is day 1. The tool fills two tables — the seventh-day services from shonanoka through the 49th day and the 100th day, and the annual anniversaries from the 1st through the 50th — with the weekday of every date. The nearest service from today onward is named above the tables with a countdown, and its row is highlighted. For any service that falls on a weekday, the Saturday and Sunday immediately before it are shown as well, so you can pick a date the family can actually attend.

What these services are

In Japanese Buddhist practice the weeks after a death are marked at seven-day intervals. The first, shonanoka, falls on the seventh day counting the date of death as day 1 — six days after it under Kanto counting — and the sequence continues through futananoka, minanoka, yonanoka, itsunanoka (also called the 35th day), munanoka and finally the seventh of them — shijukunichi, the 49th day. That last one is the major observance: it closes the period of mourning, and family who live far away will travel for it. The 100th day, hyakkanichi, follows. After that the calendar switches to yearly anniversaries: isshuki at one year, sankaiki two years after the death, then the 7th, 13th, 17th, 23rd, 27th, 33rd, 37th and 50th. Families typically stop holding individual services at the 33rd or the 50th, an occasion called tomuraiage, after which the deceased is remembered collectively with the household's ancestors.

Why Kanto and Kansai differ by one day

Two conventions exist for counting the seventh-day services. The one used widely around Tokyo treats the day of death itself as day 1, which puts the 49th day 48 days after the death. In parts of the Kansai region the day before the death is counted as day 1 instead, moving every seventh-day service one day earlier — the 49th day lands 47 days after. One day sounds trivial, but the 49th day is the service for which you book a priest, a hall and sometimes a meal, so it is worth settling the convention before anyone reserves anything. Annual anniversaries are unaffected: under either convention they fall on the same month and day as the death.

Why the third anniversary is two years

The anniversaries are counted inclusively — the death itself is the first occurrence. Sankaiki, literally the third, therefore falls two years after the death, in the year immediately following the first anniversary. The same rule gives the 7th at six years, the 13th at twelve and the 50th at forty-nine: subtract one from the ordinal to get the elapsed years. The single exception in name is isshuki, the first anniversary, which uses a different word and is exactly one year. This is why the first two anniversaries come in consecutive years, a detail that surprises families planning ahead for the first time.

Example (date of death 2026/1/15)

• Shonanoka → 2026/1/21 (Wed) under Kanto counting, six days after the death
• 49th day → 2026/3/4 (Wed), 48 days after; under Kansai counting it is 2026/3/3 (Tue)
• Moving it earlier → the weekend before 3/4 (Wed) is 2/28 (Sat) and 3/1 (Sun)
• 1st anniversary → 2027/1/15 (Fri); sankaiki is two years after, 2028/1/15 (Sat)

Choosing the date

Differences between sects and regions are real, not cosmetic. Names, which services are emphasized and when observances conclude all vary, and some sects — Jodo Shinshu is the clearest example — understand the occasion as gratitude rather than as transferring merit to the deceased. The practical order is to talk to your family temple first, secure the priest and the venue, and only then tell relatives the date. One custom worth setting aside: the rokuyo labels such as Taian and Butsumetsu, and the habit of avoiding Tomobiki, belong to funerals and wakes rather than to memorial services, so they need not constrain this schedule. Finally, if the date of death is February 29, the anniversary date does not exist in ordinary years; this tool shows February 28, but your temple may prefer March 1.

Related tools

To count plain day differences, use the Date Calculator; to check long weekends when relatives travel, see Japanese Public Holidays.

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