Chapter 37: Inbound

September 10, 2025 (Wed) / At a park bench by the water

“Thanks for inviting me to that BBQ the other day.”
When Wataru said his thanks,
“Yeah.”
Yusei replied shortly.

Wataru immediately sensed that “this guy is thinking about something again” and asked, “So? What are you thinking about tonight?”

Yusei slowly opened the pull-tab of his canned coffee and spoke up quietly.

“Even if the politicians change, the ‘manners issues of foreign tourists’ that get reported and streamed never seem to get fixed, do they?”

“Oh, here comes the social critic mode.”
Wataru chuckled and poked at a fallen leaf that had rolled to his feet.

“No, really. My old man is back at our family home in Nara, and he says, ‘I’m not going on trips anymore.’ Prices are high, and hotels feel like they have ‘foreigner pricing.’ He says it’s best to just stay home.”

“True, these days it’s common for a ryokan in Kyoto to cost fifty thousand yen a night.”

“Exactly. They call us a tourism-oriented nation, but if the locals are getting ‘worn out in their own backyard,’ it’s counterproductive, right?”

Wataru tilted his head and said,
“But isn’t that just proof of how attractive Japan is? From an overseas perspective.”

Yusei was silent for a moment, then said,
“It might not be ‘attractiveness,’ but just that it’s a ‘stable country that doesn’t complain.’ They go out of their way to visit a place that doesn’t complain, and then leave their complaints behind when they go home.”

Wataru laughed. “What’s with that ‘tourism boomerang’?”

“Well, though, I think ‘observing’ something only works if you have a sense of ‘respect’ to begin with.”

“Watch, take a picture, upload it, and if it’s ‘Instagrammable,’ you win. That cycle is just too fast these days.”

“And the ones left behind are the ‘people who live there.’”

Wataru looked down slightly and said while peeling the label off the plastic bottle he was holding,

“The izakaya where we work doesn’t even get tourists, let alone foreigners.”

“Haha, true. Sometimes a guy who looks like a foreigner comes in, but that’s usually just a regular coming back from a Filipino pub.”

“Besides, people talk about overtourism, but at our place, the ‘all-you-can-eat karaage’ is the biggest nuisance.”

Yusei replied with a laugh, “That’s a stomach nuisance.”

After they laughed, a breeze passed by for a moment.

“But Wataru, I think what’s really important is to ‘speak for your own place yourself.’ If you leave what’s attractive about it up to outside eyes, then naturally, only the ‘convenient parts’ will remain.”

“Do we even have anything to talk about?”

“The people who think they don’t have anything are the ones who find interesting things when they dig. It’s the same with theater.”

Wataru let out a breath and stared at the surface of the river.

“Then, how about we make a ZINE called ‘Tokyo Izakayas Not in the Guidebooks’? Zero tourist spots, zero foreigners, but strangely relaxing.”

“That’s good. Write ‘Please be careful not to eat too much karaage’ at the end of the page.”

“And ‘We do not sell stomach medicine in the store,’ too.”

The two of them sat side by side, laughing as they traded silly ideas.

In the air of early autumn, it felt like the world had gotten just a little bit closer.