On July 11, 2025, the Japanese Drupal community reached a significant milestone with the first-ever Drupal Contribution Day held in Tokyo. This groundbreaking event brought together developers, translators, and Drupal enthusiasts from across Japan for a full day of collaborative contribution to the Drupal project and the broader open web ecosystem.
Setting the Stage for DrupalCon Nara
This contribution day was strategically designed as part of our efforts to strengthen Japan's Drupal contributor base ahead of DrupalCon Nara in November 2025. With DrupalCon Nara featuring a dedicated contribution space for all three event days, we recognised the importance of preparing our rapidly growing Japanese Drupal community to actively participate in global Drupal development.
The event welcomed a diverse range of participants, from experienced developers looking to contribute bug fixes and patches to newcomers interested in translation work and community building. The inclusive atmosphere fostered collaboration between seasoned contributors and first-time participants, creating an ideal environment for knowledge sharing and skill development.
Empowering First-Time Contributors
A highlight of the day was the First Time Contributors Workshop, delivered in Japanese by Jimmy Cann from Ironstar. This workshop proved invaluable in breaking down barriers for new contributors, providing hands-on guidance on navigating Drupal's contribution processes, understanding issue queues, and making meaningful contributions to the project.
The workshop's success was evident in the enthusiastic participation throughout the day, with several attendees making their first contributions to Drupal core and contributed modules. Special thanks go to mradcliffe, ninelivesblackcat, and larowlan for their support.
Tackling Real-World Issues
After Jim's contribution workshop, participants broke off into three groups focused on contribution relevant to the local community and users:
Transliteration: Contributors worked on an issue with transliteration where Japanese text was incorrectly being transliterated as Chinese and were able to get a proof of concept running. This work directly impacts the user experience for Japanese Drupal sites.
Metatag Module Improvements: Contributors focused on testing and raising an MR for this issue where canonical link issues in the Metatag module, particularly problems affecting multilingual sites where canonical links weren't properly referencing the current language page.
Core Enhancements: These contributors worked on updating core functionality with the removal of deprecated UIEvent.which usage found in this issue.
CKEditor Integration: Tested problems raised in this issue related to image handling and element spacing that affect content editor experiences.
User Guide Translation: The user guide for Japanese has not but updated for many years and has a lot of gaps where no translation exists at all. The team commenced on creating new issues to provide translations for missing pages and updates for existing pages with the goal of eventually having a 100% translation into Japanese.
Community Spirit and Collaboration
Japan is already home to a collection of experienced contributors and we were grateful to have some of them attend and help in the mentoring experience. As with other Drupal communities spread across the world, this was another contribution event where there was a natural emphasis on sharing, collaboration, and inclusiveness.
Acknowledgments
The success of this inaugural event would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors and the dedication of our speakers and participants.
Special thanks to our speakers:
- Kensuke Naoe from Ironstar Japan
- Jimmy Cann from Ironstar Australia
Heartfelt gratitude to our sponsors:
- Genero
- Ironstar Japan
- Previous Next
- Pixel Onion
- Stirling Marketing
Most importantly, very special thanks to all attendees who volunteered their time and energy to make meaningful contributions to Drupal and the open web. Your dedication and enthusiasm made this event a resounding success.
Looking Forward
The inaugural Drupal Contribution Day Tokyo 2025 represents more than just a single successful event—it marks the beginning of a new chapter for Drupal contribution in Japan. As we approach DrupalCon Nara in November, we're excited about the momentum building within the Japanese Drupal community.
One of our central goals for planning DrupalCon Nara has been to ensure that local Japanese-speaking community members had an opportunity to engage in the conference in their own language, even though English is the primary language of the conference. We're excited to have nearly a third of all accepted sessions for Nara be in Japanese, and now to have an experience group of Drupal contributors who can act as Mentors for their local community in their own language.
The Future of Open Source in Japan
The inaugural Drupal Contribution Day Tokyo 2025 proved that when diverse minds come together with a shared commitment to the open web, great things happen. Here's to many more successful contribution days and a thriving Japanese Drupal community!
See you at DrupalCon Nara!
Mike Richardson, Chair, Drupal Asia Steering Committee
