Notes from Northern Japan: 3.

Anthony Rausch, Hirosaki University [About | Email ]

Volume 25, Issue 3 (Discussion Paper 6 in 2025). First published in ejcjs on 18 December 2025.

Abstract

This is the third volume of Notes from Northern Japan. As outlined in the preface to the first volume, it is my hope that the contents will fit into the multi-disciplinary objective of ejcjs in a manner that is less research than a means of offering news and happenings from rural Japan. I hope that Notes from Northern Japan will both offer themes of interest to those interested in Japan as well as pointing to potential areas of research for researchers. The content will be provided by Anthony Rausch, contributor to ejcjs and professor at Hirosaki University.

Keywords: Northern Japan, local news, current events, regional newspapers.

From Vacant Shops to Tourism Resource

Managed by Ogura Naisō小倉内装 (Aomori)

Movie-Set Lodging Completed

Toonippo 東奥日報　13 October 2025

“It seems like the world of a movie,” exclaimed a visitor to one of the rooms of the newly completed converted hotel in downtown Aomori City. With completion of the conversion from an empty business office to a fashionable tourist hotel, the opening of the BROOME Brand hotel means that the ‘Vacant Shop to Tourist Hotel’ movement has made it to Aomori.

The idea is to reform and revamp unused business and shop buildings and spaces into attractive, economical and city-centre hotel rooms and spaces. Linked up with discounts at nearby shops on the streets these ‘previous businesses-now accommodations’ are located on, this new type of ‘hotel’ represents a city centre approach to revitalisation.

The man behind this movement in Aomori city is the 50-year old president of 小倉内装、小倉勝茂. “With the continued increase in empty business and shop sites and the conversion of these to tourism resources, we are both widening the net of those involved with tourism while also energising revitalisation of the downtown area.” The rooms in the BROOME Brand hotel feature a 1990s-2000s European visual style; they are spacious and colourful, with a dynamic feel. A one-night stay for two guests costs 25,000 yen, but there are plans to appeal to locals with ken-min 県民 (Aomori Prefecture-resident) pricing available.

Note: For more on the repurposing and transformation of vacant spaces and properties, start with Channel News Asia at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/japan-hour/gaia-series-31-revitalization-shopping-street-4208121 (Source: Anthony Rausch).

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じっちゃ(Jitcha, Grandfather)

Tsugaru City as Stage, A Movie full of Family Love

Toonippo 東奥日報　16 October 2025

The movie is the story of a daughter returning from Tokyo to her homeplace in Tsugaru City, Aomori. She secures a job in local government working on Local Brand Development, and as she becomes increasingly committed to this objective, she becomes closer and closer to her grandfather. Over the course of a year, and as her life changes ... [well, I don’t want to give away the ending].

Announcement of the movie covers a two-page spread in the Toonippo 東奥日報 newspaper. A left-side column carries the words of the mayor of Tsugaru City, the public official in charge of the Tsugaru City Film Commission, the two main characters in the movie, and the script-writer and director. The right side of the spread introduces the history, the agricultural products, the nature, the festivals and the recreation areas of Tsugaru City. And the middle offers the storyline, stills from the movie, and the movie poster. The movie debuts 17 October in theatres in Aomori and 31 October in the Ikebukuro Cinema Rosa 池袋シネマ・ロサ. And yes, jitcha「じっちゃ」is one of the many renderings of ojiisan「おじいさん」in the dialects (plural) that cover western Aomori Prefecture.

This Tsugaru-based film reflects a fairly well-established trend in local-area revitalisation efforts in outlying Japan: shooting a film about a location at that location. This has become increasingly common-place due to the efforts of active local film commissions working to create specifically local themes and bring in film production companies to realise a major movie project. According to a 2016 article on the Website culture360, a film commission in Kitakyushu (Fukuoka Prefecture) has been involved in the production of over 200 films. Saga Prefecture has succeeded in attracting film and television drama producers from Thailand, with five films produced as the publishing of the article. The Website My Drama List lists 25 films that have been recognised to have been filmed in Aomori Prefecture, dating back to 1965. Notable oldies (titles offered in English) include the 1967 Pastoral: To Die in the Country, which took place on Osorezan, the haunting site of the itako located in the Shimokita Peninsula, and the 1977 Mount Hakkoda, which depicts the 1902 tragic military training winter disaster that took place on the mountain range that runs north-south through the prefecture. More recent locally-filmed local films have been Wasao in 2011, featuring sites in and around the Shirakami Mountains, Itomichi in 2021, which focuses on a young girl taking up the Tsugaru shamisen, and Tsugaru Lacquer Girl in 2023, the tale of a young woman following in her father’s steps to be a lacquer artisan.

Notes:

Japan Film Commission: https://www.japanfc.org

Japan Film Commission Promotion Council: https://film-com.jp/en/about.html

culture360.ASEF.org by the ASIA-EUROPE FOUNDATION: https://culture360.asef.org/news-events/films-shot-location-help-revitalize-japans-regional-economies/

My Drama List: https://mydramalist.com/list/73Dn0Vg1

About the Author

Anthony Rausch is professor at Hirosaki University, Japan. He obtained his PhD from Monash University and has published on issues relevant to rural Japan. He is author of Japan’s Local Newspapers: Chihoshi and Revitalisation Journalism (Routledge), Japanese Journalism and the Japanese Newspaper: A Supplemental Reader (Teneo Press), and co-editor of Japan’s Shrinking Regions: 21st Century Responses to Depopulation and Socioeconomic Decline (Cambria Press).

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