Japan

So I went to Japan in March 2023 for 3 weeks. It was an amazing trip and I highly recommend spending a month or more there if you can. Here’s a whole bunch of backstory before I get to the trip. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, Japanese products started to dominate the American imaginary. The consumer electronics were the coolest thing we had ever seen. This is before the first personal computer from IBM PC (1981) and Apple’s Mac (1984) were even on our radar.

Nakamichi – A Nakamichi tape deck was the symbol of wealth and what most teenagers and everybody else longed for including me. I was making $3.10-$6.00 in the 70’s-80’s so buying a $1000 cassette deck was out of reach. That was about 3 months of rent back then! Having a playlist on your phone, streaming music on your computer or Amazon Echo device is such a luxury and something we take for granted, but to get a playlist in the early 80’s you had to have a cassette deck. Nakamichi was known as the ultimate deck with sound as good as the vinyl source material. The 600II and 1000II were the models I remember. They altered their line so they would fit into the standard audio racks of the time. Take a look at the lineup through the years. Impressive! These were the coolest tech products I had ever seen. I used to take a bus to Berkeley to see them in a stereo store called The Sounding Board on Shattuck Ave.

This is the 600II and it fit into this really cool vertical rack that had a tuner, amp, and preamp. So cool. But the ultimate was the 1000 series below.

I doubt they sounded much different but who knows. What does Nakamichi make now? Sound bars for TVs. Outrageously expensive too. Their Dragon sound bar is $3500 but hey, shipping is free!

CDs – The beginning of the end for cassette decks was of course the introduction of the CD in 1982. I didn’t start buying them until 1989-1990 since they were $15 each and I was a poor student. I stopped buying vinyl though thinking when I had the money I’d buy all the CDs I wanted. The introduction of the CD was just the beginning, what really killed off the tape decks were being able to rip, mix, burn as Apple called it in their marketing campaign. A very effective marketing strategy. I remember all the music companies wanting to sue Apple. Steve Jobs proposed they join his iTunes Apple music service but several couldn’t see it as a viable way to consume music until it was so obvious that iTunes was the future.

Anyways, once we could rip, mix, and burn CDs, we never looked back and cassette tapes and decks were obsolete. I had a Yamaha mid range deck that I ended up giving away on CL many years ago, even decades ago I’d guess. I never gave Nakamichi another thought until recently when my friend bought one of their sound bar systems. It sounds pretty good, but the point is, market dominance can change so fast with technology.

The Walkman was the other consumer electronic device. Oh man, these were the coolest thing! Having your mixtapes portable? So cool. Watch this clip from Guardians of the Galaxy to get an idea of what it was like back in the 80’s to have a Walkman. I actually couldn’t afford one so I got the cheaper Aiwa that broke after a year or so. Really bummed it broke but by the time it did, the new ones were so cheap I just bought another. What killed the Walkman? Well, the iPod, yet another Apple product released in 2001. Now we could rip, mix, burn and download to our iPod and play 1000 songs on this one small device! Amazing. So, portable cassette players were of course now a dinosaur. Can you believe that there are mp3 Walkmans still being sold by Sony? Who would buy them at $75, $350, $900, $1400, and $3700 ??

Cars – Then there were the cars. There was a gradual change from seeing American cars everywhere, to seeing Japanese cars everywhere due to their fuel efficiency and reliability. Americans even got violent in Detroit smashing Japanese cars and even killing Vincent Chin. From 1988 to 2018 I wanted to buy only a Japanese car. Honda, Toyota, Acura, or Lexus. I had a 1988 CRX-Si, then a 1998 Acura Integra Type R, then a 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid, and a CRZ, but the Japanese fell so far behind with electric cars and it will be a decade? before they can catch up to Tesla and other EV makers. They bet on gas, hybrids, fuel cell, and natural gas cars but only the hybrids caught on and now with EVs getting 300-400 miles on a charge, their adoption will only increase as the cars get better and charging infrastructure gets built out.

So the total dominance consumer electronic and car markets I saw as a kid until 2018 has really evaporated due to digital technology advancements in music, photography, and EV cars. Now all the products I own are Amazon, Apple, Google Pixel, LG, Samsung, and Tesla, all American or Korean companies. I still have a lot of Japanese camera equipment, Canon, Sigma, and Lumix, but over 90% of consumers will be fine with the latest smart phone from Google Pixel, Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy. Do you know anyone with a Japanese phone? Another major product category that Sony etc totally missed. The shift away from Japanese products has been gradual but comprehensive from the 90’s until today. The only product I would buy besides camera equipment and a Yamaha YSP sound bar is a Sony PS5. That’s it. No cars. No other consumer electronics. I have Samsung TV’s and monitors. Amazon Echo Studio for my audio system.

Anyways, back to the trip. So several things impressed me. The quality and price of Japanese food. Better than here and cheaper by $1-$6 for a meal. Sometimes much much more. At Katta Sushi, we ate 3 desserts, 5 plates of 2 piece sushi and 3 plates of 5 piece sushi for $27. No tip or tax!

Yodobashi Camera Store. OMG, this place has anything and everything you could possibly want. j

Every lens is available for you to try out with no rear cap on so bring your body and try it on. So cool! Prices were a little bit more than here so I would just buy whatever you want in the US.

The bullet trains. So fast, quiet, and smooth, especially when braking. Lots of room too, not like an airplane. I spent about $400 on rail tickets.

The public transportation is extensive so you can get anywhere you want to go, almost, but bicycles are also welcomed. Look at this bicycle parking lot. Almost all bike are utility type bike with fenders, upright bars, 3 speeds or 1x gearing, not the expensive bikes we often see here in America. Although, there was an S-Works bike on the rack in this pic below.

Everything is unmanned so you just pay at this machine below and park your bike.

The lack of homeless and garbage anywhere. This is a welcome sight. Also, no crime really at least that’s the perception and feeling you get when walking around. For sure, no gun violence like America where we have a mass shooting every other day.

Big cameras and even these small travel type cameras below with one lens and an APS-C sensor are really gone. I mean, people will still use them since they own them, but my gawd, once you see the quality of the pix from a Google Pixel 7 Pro, especially the telephoto lens, I doubt you’ll want to carry around a camera again. Definitely I wouldn’t buy one.

What I missed? Mexican food. I love Japanese food, but after 2 weeks, I’d like something else. We even ate KFC one time. It was less salty than the KFC here.

The train stations are a little stressful due to their massive size, the people everywhere, not being familiar with it, and always having to show someone our ticket and asking them where to go. This was pretty stressful, so always leave way early to make sure you catch your train.

Travel light and do laundry once a week. A light laptop is best, not an old Macbook Pro like I was carrying.

Luggage service that takes your luggage from hotel to hotel. Reasonably priced and efficient. Great for tourists.