It's pictures taken in a Purikura, a photo booth available in most arcade centers. You can change settings as you want but by default it usually tries to make your eyes are rounder and bigger (less chinky) and your skin is whiter (less chinky).
This Is Where Tokyoites Go to Escape Crippling Anxiety
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By James Wong
A relentless work ethic and year-on-year tourism surge have now reached a boiling point in Tokyo.
It’s nearly midnight and I’m scarfing down a railway station bento box picked up on the way home from work. It was an extra-long day in my Eikaiwa gakkō, a privately owned English language school geared toward professional women in Ginza.
My hours are grueling, particularly now that I’m freelancing for a local magazine before my shift. I work 13-hour days. Last weekend I was on vacation in Taipei and finally got to switch off, but my flight back was delayed, and I stepped into work 15 minutes late, where I was fined $100 on the spot.
My students are high-salaried professionals, but some are housewives of “salarymen” in the area. They join this fancy women-only school where the course material is designed like a fashion magazine, and private classrooms are decked out in pink.
The framed photos of pugs on my desk are totally Kawaii. Keiko works in advertising and hurries in at 9 p.m. She missed the last few lessons but tells me she was lucky to get off work early today.
“8 p.m. isn’t early,” I tell her.
“It is when I often finish around midnight,” she insists.
A Work Culture Reaching a Fever Pitch
Things have been like this since Japan began rebuilding after World War II. Sacrificing one’s personal life to service the country was expected, and this united work ethos propelled Japan to become the world’s second economic superpower after the U.S. by the ’80s.
Cases of karoshi (translating to “death by overwork”) plagued society for decades, and despite policies introduced to improve work-life balance, relentless office attitudes prevailed.
The year after I moved to Japan, an advertising agency was charged over the suicide of a worker who was reported to have logged over 100 hours of overtime per month.
According to Tokyo Reporter, Japan’s fertility crisis of the last half century has been largely attributed to its unyielding work ethic.
The Japanese government hopes to implement a four-day workweek in 2025 to help improve work-life balance and create more favorable conditions for having children. Whether that action is widely adopted, or workers treat the bonus day as a day of rest remains to be seen.
I met up with an old friend on a 2024 visit to catch up on where things were post-pandemic. Ryoko was born in Japan, schooled in the U.S., and moved back to Tokyo the same year I did, securing a sought-after role within a tech consultancy in Chiyoda City, thanks to her fluent dual language capabilities.
“For years I was exhausted; exhausted at work, exhausted by the city. Then Covid brought peace for a little while, until borders reopened and then it felt like the whole world came knocking. I stopped going to my local coffee shops where I would know the baristas and owners because there literally was no room,” she recalls.
“Things were not the same anymore.”
I thought back to 2017, to the weekends I went drinking with Ryoko, now 33, and her friends. Street parties on Halloween were a huge part of the culture, and we’d hit Shibuya without ever causing trouble, always cleaning up after ourselves.
This year, in an attempt to curb bad behavior by inconsiderate visitors joining the festivity, it was canceled. I walked around the famous scramble, plastered with posters that warned against drinking on the street.
Shibuya No Drinking signs
The weak yen (currently at a 34-year low against the dollar) has ballooned Japan’s tourism, and Tokyo is now a destination of untenable popularity, as evidenced on Fodor’s 2025 No List.
Even the Disney adults of my extended family are coming here to snag bargains. They don’t care about tea rituals—they prefer a Matcha Frappuccino. It used to be us foreigners who’d adapt to Japan, but now it’s the other way around.
“Trying to get to work on time in one of the most densely populated big cities in the world is enough of a stress as it is, but now we have to deal with Westerners lugging giant suitcases onto the carriage at 7 a.m. in the morning,” adds Ryoko.
“When the weekend comes, we need to escape the noise pollution of Tokyo. Thankfully, it’s only an hour or two to reach nature by Shinkansen, so I head to Nagano. Not Nagano City.”
Nagano: A Place of Respite
It just so happened that I was heading to one of Nagano prefecture’s small towns, Karuizawa, and true to Ryoko’s word, the bullet train proved supersized and suitcase-free. Instead, luggage compartments were only filled with compact Japanese smart cases small enough to squeeze into an overhead bin.
Karuizawa, population 20,000, was a breath of fresh air compared with the chaos of Tokyo. It’s busiest in two seasons: the summer when Tokyoites retreat to high altitudes for a respite from the brutal summer heat, and the winter ski season.
My hotel, Prince Grand Resort Karuizawa, is just an hour from the city, with golf courses, onsens, and even its own ski area. At the base of Mount Asama, you get an epic backdrop.
I went without a drop of wine to calm my jittery nerves. Shinrin-yoku (or “forest bathing”) was developed in Japan following scientific studies conducted by the government in the 1980s. Results showed that just two hours of mindful forest exploration reduced blood pressure and lowered cortisol.
Today, Karuizawa is a domestic draw, but it was popularized as a summer spot in the late 19th century by a Scottish-Canadian missionary, Alexander Croft Shaw.
He appreciated the cool climate and Zen surroundings and built a holiday retreat, encouraging other foreigners to follow suit, which led to Western-style villas, churches, and hotels.
In the coming centuries, these Western-style amenities appealed to the Japanese elite, turning the area into a sort of Hamptons-style getaway for Tokyoites. Even former prime minister Shigenobu Okuma owned a villa in Karuizawa.
1. Karuizawa View
2. Karuizawa Hot Springs
Despite Shaw’s investment, Karuizawa has pretty much flown under the radar of Western tourists. Americans make up 5.4% of all Nagano’s foreign inbound travel, and the number for Karuizawa is likely less than half that.
Meanwhile, in Kyoto, you’re looking at 34.9%. Karuizawa’s predominately Japanese clientele are a different type of tourists from the rest of the world.
They don’t come with giant luggage, they don’t wear shoes in temples, and they certainly don’t walk and eat at the same time (it’s gotten so bad that there are signs all over Kyoto asking visitors to stop). I saw not a single sign of the sort in Karuizawa. Bliss.
With its natural hot springs, breathtaking Alps, and larch forests ideal for Shinrin-yoku, Karuizawa has been the gateway to serenity for Tokyoites for decades, and having seen it first-hand, I can see why. There’s plenty of room to be at one, and everyone is incredibly considerate.
As a non-Japanese traveling party, we understood that to be welcome means to respect the town, its cultures and traditions, and most of all, to leave our big suitcases at home.
What could unlock Mormon Church growth in Japan? Two words, says scholar: green tea.
How the political and social views of Japanese Latter-day Saints compare with their U.S. counterparts.
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By Tamarra Kemsley
Among the many challenges facing Japanese Latter-day Saints is the ever-present friction between church and educational demands on school-age children, who are expected to participate in demanding extracurriculars — including on weekends
A faithful Japanese Latter-day Saint, he had committed to never allowing a drop of green tea — considered, along with black tea and coffee, to be against the faith’s dietary code — to pass his lips.
But here he was, seated at a full conference table while the powerful chair of another organization’s board performed a tea ceremony in his honor.
He looked at all the smiling, expectant faces, then down at the delicate cup steaming between his fingers.
To reject the offering, even in the name of religion, he knew would constitute a gross offense. So he faked it, raising the cup to his lips and pretending to sip before declaring to the gratified crowd that the tea was “delicious.”
Shinji Takagi, professor emeritus of economics at Osaka University, is one of three co-authors of a landmark study on the beliefs, behaviors and backgrounds of Japanese Latter-day Saints who regularly attend worship services
This tense anecdote is one of many found in the book “Unique But Not Different: Latter-day Saints in Japan,” a first-of-its-kind research into the beliefs, behaviors and backgrounds of Japanese members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Based on data gathered from a lengthy survey shared via email and social media during fall 2021, the landmark study synthesizes between 440 and 530 responses to each of the researchers’ 56 questions.
Researchers specifically focused their efforts on those who attended church regularly, a group they estimate constitutes about 20% of the country’s 130,000 Latter-day Saints.
The picture that emerged is one of a devout core who are more politically diverse but more socially conservative than their U.S. counterparts, and for whom their religious identity — as in the case of the panicked executive — comes first, trumping even their Japanese cultural identity.
Japanese views on women’s issues
Roll into a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse just about anywhere in the United States and you can pretty much assume the majority of the people there consider themselves favoring the Republican Party, said study co-author and Japanese Latter-day Saint Shinji Takagi.
Not so for Japanese Latter-day Saints. Study respondents’ party affiliation ran the gamut, from the most conservative to Communist, and with a slight majority claiming no party at all. In this way, Japanese Latter-day Saints essentially reflect their nation’s political landscape.
“In Japan,” Takagi, a professor emeritus of economics at Osaka University, summarized, “politics have absolutely no role to play in their religious [identity].”
Given this, one might be tempted to assume similar diversity in the individuals’ views on social issues when compared to Latter-day Saints living in the United States.
Not so.
In recent weeks, thousands of American believers have been petitioning the church on social media for a more equitable distribution of power between genders.
The conversation has focused on a lack of decision-making authority for women within the faith’s patriarchal structure — and is one, the researchers found, in which the overwhelming majority of Japanese members simply aren’t invested.
The study asked respondents to state whether they agreed with two statements, both borrowed from a 2019 survey of U.S. Latter-day Saints.
The first: Women do not have enough say in the church.
The second: The fact that women do not hold the priesthood sometimes bothers me.
In both cases, a much larger share of American Latter-day Saints, male or female, expressed agreement.
Adjusted for church activity, 6% and 7% of Japanese women and men, respectively, and 18% and 17% of American women and men, respectively, did not think women had “enough say in the church.”
Meanwhile, less than 1% and 5% of Japanese women and men, respectively, and 18% and 19% of American women and men, respectively, agreed that the gendered divide with regards to priesthood “bothered” them.
A similar theme emerged with same-sex marriage. Around 1 in 4 of Japanese respondents agreed with the statement, “I support same-sex marriage as the right of a citizen, even though I have doctrinal reservation.”
In contrast, a recent PRRI study found that nearly half of U.S. Latter-day Saints support allowing same-sex couples to marry.
Why the difference?
“Japanese society, as a whole,” Takagi said, “tends to accept traditional gender roles” more than many Americans.
That’s part of it, he theorized. Another part has to do with the degree of loyalty to the church found in active Japanese members when compared with their American peers.
Being Christian, let alone a Latter-day Saint, renders believers a tiny minority with the island nation’s 125 million populace.
Membership in the Utah-based faith, with its Western-style worship and, critically, restrictions on tea, comes with steep social costs for many Japanese Latter-day Saints. Most fall away, Takagi said, leaving only the most devout core behind in the pews.
In short, Japanese members are simply more committed than their American peers, he and his co-authors hypothesized, with the church acting as the preeminent moral authority in their lives.
Simply put: When church leaders rise to the pulpit to declare that God has called men to preside and same-sex marriage a sin, they listen.
That the church has also endorsed efforts that have coupled laws protecting same-sex marriage in the United States with protections for religious organizations, appears to factor less than doctrinal stances for Japan’s faithful.
What it would take to grow the church in Japan
In the book "Unique But Not Different: Latter-day Saints in Japan," researchers estimate that about 20% of the nation's 130,000 church members attend worship services regularly
There is one trait Japanese and American members share: Both groups have seen their overall growth rates more or less stagnate in recent years.
Takagi and his co-authors pin this phenomenon in Japan on a declining birthrate, elderly deaths and emigration, noting that most of the country’s other religious groups have begun to see a net decline.
Overcoming the pull of these structural forces will be difficult, Takagi said, but not impossible. And in case anyone at church headquarters is taking notes, the man has come prepared with suggestions.
To start, Salt Lake City could give local leadership greater latitude to “make the church less American,” starting by removing all English transliterated words from church vocabulary (“bishoppu” for “bishop,” “minisutaringu” for ministering), the result of which is a “strange” codelike parlance that alienates outsiders.
Another would be greater allowances for adapting youth programs and classes around Japanese students’ schedules, which are often far more demanding than the traditional American K-12 school calendar.
And then there’s green tea.
More than any other single action the church could take, allowing Japanese members to drink green tea would, Takagi said, attract and retain more converts.
The scholar emphasized he wasn’t advocating for full assimilation into Japanese culture. There still needs to be something, he said, that sets a faith apart and creates a kind of “tension” between them and their wider society for it to provide meaning. Neither does he think the church would have to give green tea blanket approval.
“The church can simply recognize that situations exist,” he said, “where drinking green tea is not a violation of [its dietary code] the Word of Wisdom.”
Situations, say, like an executive being offered the drink as part of a ceremony in his honor.
It doesn’t matter because Japan has no laws against discrimination and the Japanese government will never, ever care about it.
Could that change with the recent increase in "identity politics" BS over there (from Western SJW influence)?
Yes but only if there is some kind of strong cultural reason for people to agree with the identity politics BS.
It's not that it could change, it will change.
Actually planning my second trip there now after one in 2023. Hotels have definitely gotten more expensive in Tokyo but outside of that I'm seeing things about the same price. Flights have gotten more expensive but actually since I'm using Delta miles and booked it like six months out I'm paying about the same as I did last time. I'm mainly planning to go more rural places for this trip. Did the main route of Tokyo, Kyoto/Osaka, Hiroshima last time. If ya wanna see popular stuff then the thing to do is take advantage of being jet lagged and do anything that appears on a top five list in the morning when no one else is there. Like I got to Senbon Torii in Kyoto at like 6:00AM since I was waking up at like 4AM every day naturally and had a great time walking the entire route when it wasn't packed with people.
Yes i joined a couple days ago, Great job Eddie! So smart! I'm gonna call you special Ed from now on!
You don't have to buy "le traditional futon", it's expensive and a weeb trap. Modern futons are better in every sense.
Thanks for the tip! Yeah I was looking into it more since I figured there's no way most Japanese people actually spend that much on a futon.
