4 hrs ago
Japan's Showa Retro Revival Draws Locals, Tourists, and Entrepreneurs
Atami is a seaside city near Tokyo that was once very popular with Japanese holidaymakers.
Its hotels and businesses struggled after Japan's economic bubble burst in the 1990s.
Now, people are becoming interested in the city's colorful old buildings and retro businesses again.
This style is called Showa retro, referring mainly to Japan from the 1960s through the 1980s.
Some entrepreneurs are fixing up abandoned houses and old buildings.
Cafes, bars, music, and hotels are using bright colors, decorations, and designs from that era.
Many people enjoy these places because they feel personal and less automated.
Social media is also encouraging young people and visitors to photograph them.
Atami had more than three million overnight visitors in 2025, but many foreign tourists still visit only Japan's best-known destinations.
Atami, once a major postwar resort, is being revitalized through Showa-era design, cafes, bars, and renovated properties.
Entrepreneurs Hillary Hewins and Blake Piper are restoring abandoned Atami buildings for a boutique hotel planned for 2027.
The Showa retro revival includes kissaten cafes, sunakku bars, city pop music, and other highly personalized spaces.
Supporters see the trend as a response to loneliness, urban sameness, economic stagnation, and Japan's preference for demolishing old buildings.
Atami recorded more than 3 million overnight visitors in 2025, while international tourists remain concentrated in a handful of major destinations.
- Who
- Entrepreneurs, domestic travelers, young Japanese people, and international tourists are driving renewed interest in Showa-era places; examples include Hillary Hewins, Blake Piper, Takuji Kitagawa, and Night Tempo.
- What
- A revival of Japan's Showa retro architecture, music, cafes, bars, resorts, and entertainment is bringing new attention and investment to places including Atami.
- Where
- Atami, Tokyo, Chichibu in Saitama prefecture, and other destinations within Tokyo's orbit.
- When
- The revival is described as growing in 2025, when Atami surpassed three million overnight visitors and Showa Club opened in Tokyo.
- Why
- The trend reflects nostalgia, interest in more personal and analog social spaces, reactions against standardized modern design, preservation efforts, and the appeal of photogenic settings on social media.
Cultural Revival
Social-Media Trend
What is driving interest?
Cultural Revival
The revival reflects a desire for human connection, resistance to automated and standardized spaces, nostalgia for Showa-era energy, and renewed interest in preserving older buildings.
Social-Media Trend
Some observers say young visitors are primarily attracted by the visual appeal and the opportunity to post photogenic cafes, bars, and neighborhoods online.
Who is returning to Atami?
Cultural Revival
Domestic travelers are helping revive old resorts, including properties that have not been renovated; one visitor reported seeing at least 150 other guests at a formerly quiet hotel.
Social-Media Trend
International tourists remain focused largely on Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hokkaido, and Okinawa, with 70% visiting only those five destinations according to a 2025 analysis cited in the article.
What does Showa represent?
Cultural Revival
For supporters, Showa retro offers a distinctive visual language, sociability, and a connection to Japan's recent cultural history.
Social-Media Trend
For some younger Japanese people, the period is less a personal memory than an aspirational, Instagram-friendly image of a time when Japan appeared confident and prosperous.
Key facts
- Atami overnight visitors in 2025
- More than 3 million, up from 2.8 million in 2024
- Atami travel distance
- About 40 minutes from Tokyo by bullet train
- Atami population
- About 30,000 today, down from approximately 50,000
- Atami decline after the bubble
- Hotel revenue fell about 25% in five years, while visitation had dropped 55% from its peak by 2011
- International arrivals to Japan in 2025
- 42.7 million, up from 36.9 million the previous year
- Showa Club
- A modernized sunakku opened by Takuji Kitagawa in Tokyo's Kanda neighborhood in 2025
- Komeda's Coffee
- A Showa retro cafe chain with more than 1,000 locations in Japan planning global franchise expansion
Quotes
Takuji Kitagawa
Tokyo-based marketing strategy specialist and founder of Showa Club
“But as foreigners begin visiting for the third or fourth time, the Showa retro aesthetic will soon be of great interest to them too.”
livemint.com
“Showa retro is something else entirely — it has its own visual language that’s genuinely distinctive on a global scale.”
livemint.com
Sources
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