Faded Japanese towns, cities and old tourist spots

Hello again from Tokyo.

As I begin to put this together, the city is once again enduring a brutally hot week in the middle of an already blistering time of year. A season that somehow never fails to surprise, as no matter how long I live here, the oppressive, almost oven-like atmosphere always comes as a shock.

A summer trip to central Japan

All that said, after returning from a UK visit at the end of July, I made a short trip out to central Japan. A mistake in one sense as it turned out to be even toastier than Tokyo, but at the same time, it did offer a lot photographically. There was an overgrown street of abandoned pre-war row houses, a quiet old town with a beautifully tiled and long unused public bath, plus a whole host of faded scenes and dated environments.

All of which got me thinking, and provided the theme for this edition of the newsletter.

Slowly disappearing Japanese towns and cities

When travelling outside Japan’s main cities and popular tourist hubs, the sights shown here — which I’ve separated into specific locations — are very much the norm rather than the exception.

Countless locations that are well past both their population and financial peaks, with the only realistic future being a long and slow decline, ultimately resulting in more and more shops and structures being shuttered up or abandoned.

Admittedly it’s a situation that isn’t unique to Japan, but the sheer scale of of it, along with a rapidly shrinking population, does make one wonder what will become of large swathes of the country in decades to come.

Of course immigration is one possibility, and the number of foreign residents has visibly grown. The likes of demolition crews are invariably foreign these days, and most convenience store staff are non-Japanese.

The numbers though are still comparatively low (3% of the population), and there really isn’t an appetite for it. Increasingly there’s push back and bad press in relation to mass tourism, and then there’s the recent electoral gains of Sanseito with their Japan First agenda. A far right anti-foreigner party in an already very conservative political system.

Regeneration and relocation incentives are also options, but as these photos suggest, most places are, from a financial point at least, already long past the tipping point of being resuscitated.

Dated and decaying tourist spots

Ironically, despite the massive increase of foreign visitors, many of japan’s old and more traditional holiday spots are in a similarly sorry state, with the bursting of the bubble and changing trends setting them into a seemingly irreversible decline. A vicious circle of dated spaces without the funds to modernise, resulting in increasingly less desirable accommodation and a further dwindling of visitor numbers.

Whether any of this can or will be halted remains to be seen, and for now at least, the government doesn’t seem to have any real answers. And yet despite, or perhaps because of, the obvious melancholic vibe such places possess, they are truly fascinating locations to stay in, explore and photograph.

All of which were my thoughts along with the included photos from just a small selection of the cities, towns and old tourist spots I’ve visited over the years. And fingers crossed I’ll have the chance to visit many more in the future, although ideally not in the months of July and August.

Print sales

Ruminations that pretty much wrap up this summer edition of the newsletter, but as such places have, to me at least, an unconventional beauty all their own, I’m going to offer two of my favourite shots from above as prints — the ones up top featuring those iconic Japanese taxis. Both of which will be 20% off for the whole of September. The print featuring the white cab is here, and this is the orange one.

Thanks as always for subscribing, and for reading this far.

Cheers

Lee