Japan traditionally celebrates New Year's Eve with the 108-bell Buddhist temple ritual called joyanokane.
During Ōmisoka, the final day of the Japanese year, Buddhist temples ring their bells 108 times. The ritual is linked to the Buddhist idea that people are troubled by 108 earthly desires or attachments. Each bell strike symbolically helps purify people from one of these sources of suffering before the new year begins.
The practice is distinct from Japan's secular countdowns and from the Shinto custom of hatsumōde, the first shrine or temple visit of the year. Many families also eat year-end soba, associated with wishes for longevity and the breaking away of hardship. The Gregorian New Year is Japan's principal annual holiday period, while some other East Asian cultures place their major New Year celebration on a lunisolar calendar instead. That difference makes Japan's date and ritual easy to distinguish.