<h3>Tokyo&#8217;s Shin-Okubo, one of the leading Korean towns in Japan, is also becoming Niseko-ized.</h3>
 Niseko-ka suru Nippon&#8221; (&#8220;Niseko-izing Japan&#8221;), which was published at the end of January under the title &#8220;Reiwa&#8217;s Urban and Consumer Theory,&#8221; is attracting a lot of attention from businesspersons.
 The author is Kazuki Tanigashira. He is a Gen Z urban journalist who discusses the &#8220;present&#8221; of Japan through its cities and commercial facilities.
 Niseko in Hokkaido is known as a ski resort that attracts many wealthy people from overseas, and Mr. Tanigashira writes in the &#8220;Introduction&#8221; of this book.
 In the &#8220;Introduction&#8221; of this book, Mr. Tanigashira writes: &#8220;Right now, Japan is becoming &#8220;Niseko-ized&#8221; in every aspect.
 What kind of phenomenon does &#8220;Niseko-ization&#8221; refer to? It means that through &#8220;selection and concentration,&#8221; a place becomes like a &#8220;theme park.
<figure id="attachment_415390" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-415390" style="width: 6000px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="e0c02c8a"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/02/1997a7effe85d50195d15967ba097fd4.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-415390" class="wp-caption-text"> Shin-Okubo, one of the most famous Korean towns in Japan, is lined with Korean restaurants, K-POP idol goods, Korean cosmetics, and other stores.</figcaption></figure>
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 What led this urban journalist, who often covers and writes about chain stores and theme parks, to focus on Niseko? We asked him.
 Actually, I didn&#8217;t set out to write about Niseko from the beginning.
 Looking at recent trends in chain stores and commercial facilities, I felt that more and more places were more precisely targeted than in the past and were adopting strategies to satisfy specific demographics. In other words, &#8220;selection and concentration&#8221; were becoming stronger.
 Around that time, I happened to read Katsuhide Takahashi&#8217;s book, &#8220;Why Niseko is the only resort in the world? In the book, he wrote that the reason Niseko became the international resort it is today is because it has practiced &#8220;selection and concentration&#8221; toward wealthy foreigners. I see, I thought, the same thing is happening in tourist destinations.
 If so, I thought, we could use &#8220;Niseko&#8221; as a starting point to talk about everything from the city to commercial facilities and our consumption behavior. That&#8217;s what I thought.
 It may seem a bit cheeky, but I also wanted to make it catchy by including the keyword &#8220;Niseko-ization&#8221; in the title (laughs). (Laughs) There has been a lot of interest in Niseko over the past few years.
 If &#8220;Niseko-ization&#8221; is happening all over Japan, where else but Niseko is thriving due to &#8220;selection and concentration&#8221;?
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 Without hesitation, Mr. Tanigashira cited Shin-Okubo in Tokyo, which he also discussed in &#8220;Niseko-ka suru Nippon&#8221; (&#8220;Niseko-izing Japan&#8221;). During the bubble era of the 1980s, Shin-Okubo was home to many Korean hostesses, but today it is one of the most famous Korean towns in Japan, lined with Korean restaurants, K-POP idol goods, Korean cosmetics, and other stores.
 In my book, I wrote that the &#8220;selection and concentration&#8221; of Shin-Okubo occurred spontaneously.
 The Japan-Korea World Cup and the popularity of Korean dramas triggered a &#8220;concentration&#8221; of stores for Korean lovers, and the people who came to these stores were &#8220;selected,&#8221; leading to a further &#8220;concentration.
 I sometimes go to Shin-Okubo because I also like Korean dramas, and I am really surprised. The characters I see are usually in Hangul. From the design of the stores to the way the signs are made, it is as if you are in Korea. For those who love Korea, this place is irresistible.
 However, Shin-Okubo is a phenomenon that is concentrated in one section of the city, so once you step out of the area, various non-Korean nationals come and go, and the area is filled with a sense of life. Just like at a Disney resort, one section of the city has become &#8220;Korea in Japan,&#8221; and this is exactly what is happening: the transformation of the area into a theme park through selection and concentration.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Shibuya today is ......"></div>
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<h3>Depending on the SNS you use&#8230;you will see &#8220;Shibuya&#8221; in a completely different way.</h3>
 In the 1960s, Shinjuku was the town for young people, and from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, Shibuya was the town for young people. What areas do you and the other members of Generation Z find interesting and interesting?
 Mr. Tanigashira answered, &#8220;Depending on the neighborhood or cluster you belong to, the streets young people go to are completely different. Those who are in bands or theater say Shimokitazawa is the hottest. It seems that the redevelopment project, which was carried out in cooperation with Odakyu Electric Railway and the residents, has gone quite well. I often go there myself and see many young people coming and going day and night.
 I also hear that people in the art world gather mainly in East Tokyo and Kyojima in Sumida Ward. There is relatively inexpensive housing in that area for Tokyo, so I think the ability to set up a studio there was a big factor.
 I have the impression that the trend is for the trendiest areas to be scattered in the center of Tokyo, slightly outside the Yamanote Line. Since redevelopment in central Tokyo has led to an overall trend toward gentrification, it may be that the centripetal force of towns that have not yet been fully developed is increasing.
 For example, it was &#8220;Parco&#8221; that led the youth culture in Shibuya in the &#8217;70s and &#8217;80s. Mr. Tanigashira himself describes &#8220;Niseko-ka suru Nippon&#8221; as &#8220;Urbanism in the Age of SNS,&#8221; and he says that since the spread of smartphones in the 1960s, when everyone began to casually use SNS, the makeup of towns where young people gather has changed from the past.
<figure id="attachment_415391" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-415391" style="width: 2300px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="2dc21123"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/02/a129c57eea746deb8900055545f7825d.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-415391" class="wp-caption-text"> In the 1970s and 1980s, Parco was the driving force behind Shibuya&#8217;s youth culture. The photo shows Park Avenue in Shibuya in the early &#8217;70s.</figcaption></figure>
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 The main social networking sites used in Shibuya are X, Instagram, and TikTok,&#8221; said Mr. Kurokawa.
 Those who mainly use TikTok must have a map of Shibuya in their minds with &#8220;MIYASHITA PARK&#8221; at the center. MIYASHITA PARK&#8221; is now called the &#8220;sacred place of TikTok,&#8221; and at night, many people, especially young women, are dancing in front of their phones (laughs).
 For the Insta-types, the Jinnan area near Harajuku is the center of Shibuya. It has a high concentration of fashionable stores that look good on Instagram.
 For foreigners visiting Japan, they come to take pictures of the scramble crossing with pinpoint accuracy, and they probably think the scramble crossing is the center of Shibuya.
 In short, there are different views of the city depending on the SNS you use. In an age when it is easy to find something that suits one&#8217;s tastes on the Internet or SNS, I think it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract people unless we separate our targets more finely and thoroughly &#8216;select and focus&#8217; on them.
 Even in Shibuya, which is said to be &#8220;no longer a young people&#8217;s town&#8221; since the large-scale &#8220;once in a century&#8221; redevelopment project began, there are still young people where there are young people. However, it is not young people who are the target of &#8220;selection and concentration&#8221; in the current Shibuya redevelopment project by the Tokyu Group.
 Tokyu Group&#8217;s redevelopment of Shibuya can be summed up roughly as &#8216;from a town for young people to a town for adults.
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 It is a little known fact, but the Shibuya redevelopment project was divided into two phases. The main target of the first phase from &#8217;12 to &#8217;20 was tourists and office workers. In the second phase, &#8220;residents&#8221; will be added to this group, and the target is different from when we worked on Shibuya 109, which at least focused on teens and 20-somethings.
 With the recent redevelopment, the area around Shibuya Station is certainly no longer a place where young people can continue to stay aimlessly. In a sense, I would say that Tokyu has succeeded, since young people are no longer hanging out around the station, as per Tokyu&#8217;s scenario.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Selection and concentration&quot; always involves &quot;elimination..."></div>
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<h3>Selection and concentration&#8221; always involves &#8220;elimination.&#8221; Beyond that: &#8230;&#8230;</h3>
 Tokyu Plaza Ginza, which had been operated by Tokyu Corporation after it was sold to Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Panasonic Finance Co. Tokyu is also withdrawing from the operation and the name of the facility is likely to be changed.
 Tokyu Plaza Ginza has fallen into disrepair since Corona, despite its location at the prestigious Sukiyabashi intersection in Ginza. I feel that we were too naive in grasping the needs of the people coming to Ginza and the inbound crowd, or more to the point, I think we were too drawn to the exhaustive store development of the department stores of the past.
 Today, there are many category killers, specialty stores that specialize in a single product, all over Japan, and department stores are perceived as &#8220;having everything, but not what we want to buy. Under such circumstances, department stores that adopt a strategy of specializing in inbound and affluent customers are succeeding.
 However, Tokyu was not able to create a unique commercial facility in terms of software. I feel that this is the reason why it failed in Ginza.
<figure id="attachment_415392" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-415392" style="width: 3861px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="a6d508e2"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/02/732c08ee3ea33e835b7541dc79374e43.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-415392" class="wp-caption-text"> Mr. Tanigashira says, &#8220;Tokyu Plaza Ginza failed to create individuality in terms of software. Photo taken at the time of opening</figcaption></figure>
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 As Mr. Tanigashira writes in his new book, the &#8220;Niseko-ization&#8221; of the city in which we live, its commercial facilities and public spaces, and all other places may be in progress. However, in the future, urban development and town planning through &#8220;selection and concentration&#8221; seem to be quite difficult.
 In his new book, Mr. Tanigashira points out that &#8220;Niseko-ization&#8221; itself is fraught with problems. What are these problems? Selection and concentration&#8221; always entails &#8220;elimination.
 If this is the case, then as &#8220;selection and concentration&#8221; become more and more fragmented due to the influence of social networking services, will there be as many &#8220;exclusions&#8221; as the number of such exclusions?
 For example, if there is only &#8220;selection and concentration&#8221; targeting the wealthy, there will be a composition of &#8220;selected&#8221; rich people and &#8220;excluded&#8221; lower-middle class people.
 Although this is not a desirable form, I do not think the trend of &#8220;Niseko-ization&#8221; will stop, because in a mature consumer society with the development of social networking services, each person will continue to seek content that deeply touches him or her.
 In order to reduce the number of &#8220;exclusions&#8221; as much as possible, we have no choice but to increase various types of &#8220;selection and concentration. The role of the government should be to balance the many &#8220;choices&#8221; that have been created in this way.
 On the other hand, I think it is necessary to stop and think about &#8220;Niseko-ization&#8221; itself. This is because in a place that has been &#8220;Niseko-ized,&#8221; those who have been excluded will feel more or less &#8220;divided. In other words, we must also think about how to dissolve the division.&#8221;
 In his book, Mr. Tanigashira confesses, &#8220;At least I am aware of the problem of &#8216;Niseko-izing Nippon. Hence, the book covers a wide range of tourist attractions, towns, commercial facilities, and even thrusting activities, and does not dare to &#8220;select and concentrate&#8221; on any of them.
 The book is a collection of stories about industries that are considered to be completely separate, connected by the keyword &#8220;Niseko-ka&#8221; (Niseko-ization). By making it a cross-sectional and comprehensive book, I am showing my resistance to &#8216;selection and concentration,&#8217; and I am expressing my own intention to oppose &#8216;division.
 I did not write this book as a critique. But as a result, it may be tinged with the color of a critique. Criticism, I believe, is a genre of writing in which topics from different genres can be discussed in relation to each other.
 In this era of &#8220;Niseko-ization,&#8221; I think that criticism can play a surprisingly large role. &#8230;&#8230; That&#8217;s what I feel.
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Kazuki Tanigashira is an urban journalist and chain store researcher. He graduated from the School of Cultural Planning at Waseda University and holds a master&#8217;s degree in Japanese language education from the School of Education at Waseda University. He received the Toyo Keizai Online Award 2024 MVP. His works include &#8220;Why are there penguins in Donki?&#8221; (Shueisha Shinsho) and &#8220;Thinking from Book-Off: Cultural Infrastructure Born from &#8216;Somehow'&#8221; (Seikyusha).
<figure id="attachment_415393" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-415393" style="width: 1513px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="942b9029"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/02/7ad91739eb2be076dcd5f45797cce9d8.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-415393" class="wp-caption-text"> Kazuki Tanigashira&#8217;s new book &#8220;Niseko-ka suru Nippon&#8221; (Niseko-izing Nippon) (KADOKAWA)</figcaption></figure>
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<a href="https://amzn.to/4gXqVXF" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Kazuki Tago&#8217;s new book &#8220;Niseko-ka suru Nippon&#8221; is available here.</a>
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 Sayuri Saito

 Afro

 Japan is now "Niseko-ized" in every aspect, according to Kazuki Tanigashira, an urban journalist. In his book, urban journalist Kazuki Tanigashira says, "Japan is now 'Niseko-ized' in every aspect. What kind of phenomenon is this "Niseko-ization"? And what was it that led him to focus on Niseko?

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Is All of Japan Becoming “Niseko”?　A Generation Z Urban Journalist Fears Japan in the Age of SNS