Japanese tourist Keiko Jinhouchi, 28, said she was spending a week in Barcelona with two friends from Tokyo and they decided to enter the fray.
“It’s my first time in Spain, we’re here for the day. Because it’s fun,” she said.
Fellow Japanese Kohei Onizaki, equipped with swimming goggles, had a tomato painted on one cheek and a Japanese flag on the other.
“There is a very famous TV show in Japan where a famous person joins this festival. It’s a very famous festival,” he explained.
Though the origins of the event are unclear, it is thought to have its roots in a food fight between children during a parade in the mid 1940s.
It has grown in size as international press coverage has brought more and more people to the festival.
After the fight, many of the revellers traditionally head to the local river to wash off the pulp. In this year’s rain, that may not be necessary.
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