The Good, The Bad and the Lizard People of Sakata.

And the Great Muji Standoff of 2026.

The sun rises over Chokai-san and the rice fields of Sakata. All images by Kiwi Yamabushi unless otherwise stated. Story originally published on my Substack at Kiwiyamabushi.com.

It started off very briefly.

I parked my car at the local Toichiya supermarket, the one right next to northern Japan’s biggest Muji store.

And I was met with quite a shock:

A lizard person.

In the flesh.

Only, I didn’t know it at the time.

At first, naturally, I thought it was an invader on my Japan territory. As a 15-years-a-gaijin I have to protect my turf at all costs. I mean, a website I made was quoted on National Geographic. If that doesn’t scream ‘I own you’, I don’t know what would.

However, when I judgingly looked at their bag it read:

Walmart.

False alarm. He’s a harmless lizard person. He’s not a threat at all. He’s already failed Foreigner-Living-in-Japan 101: The bag has to be Muji or some other famous Japanese brand.

That, or a bag with weird English on it.

Like this one:

Fearless. Affectionate. Patient. Shibas gotta Sheeb.

Then I watched the lizard person walk over to another, lizarder person. Probably the wife. This is getting out of hand.

Now there are two of them!

My fixation on that Walmart bag had completely blinded me to my surroundings.

There weren’t just two of them.

There were hundreds!

And then it hit me:

Today was a cruise ship day.

The lizard people had arrived in Sakata en masse in a massive multi-million dollar ship (they get angry if you call it a boat).

We can feel immune to the inbound tourism in Sakata all we want, until the lizard people start their invasion, in more ways than one.

Despite record numbers of foreign visitors to these shores I was yet to be inconvenienced, not even in the slightest. We are relatively sheltered up here in lonely old Sakata, let alone Tohoku. We hardly see any non-Japanese people. And the stats back that up too. Us 1.6%ers have to maintain our reputation somehow.

This in spite of one of the shortest flights from Haneda, which I’m gathering most tourists to Japan don’t even think about. In other words, it’s still pretty hard to get here from a place like Tokyo. You’re looking at at least 5 hours by train, or a boat ride (ship ride?) on the Sea of Japan, for example.

Hardly welcoming.

That, and the fact that we don’t register on anyone’s radar, well, besides National Geographic, I guess, has meant that I have felt immune to all those stories of tourists acting up, and the Japanese response.

Until yesterday.

The Lizard People in their natural habitat, the Lizard Cruiser.

There I was, about to line up at the aforementioned Muji trying to purchase a 590-yen bottle of decaf coffee mixer, yes we coffee-addicted yamabushi also have our vices.

I thought to myself, ‘it’s just one item, I’ll be out in a jiffy’.

How wrong I was.

I headed to the checkouts and noticed a small line, nothing too bad. The attendant asked the person in front of me something, and they pointed to the line to say ‘I’m lining up here’. I had only ever bought anything from this Muji once or twice and had forgotten that the view of the self-service checkouts was completely blocked off by a giant pillar. So I patiently joined the line awaiting instructions from the staff, like any kami-fearing person would.

The person in front of me said something to the person in front of them in Mandarin. ‘Must be Chinese. Or, statistically speaking, Taiwanese’ I thought to myself as I waited, and waited.

And waited.

All the while checking my watch and trying to look past the pillar to see if anyone had left the self-service checkouts.

Nope. Not yet. Must be some big purchases.

Until, probably 2–3 minutes later, a Japanese couple lined up behind me.

The attendant turned to them and said ‘are you wanting to purchase things duty free?’

‘Excuse me?’ Said the man.

‘You know, duty free. Without tax.’

‘I don’t even know what that means.’

‘Oh, I see. Then you can go ahead to the self-service checkouts’.

To which I promptly butted in, in my flawless Japanese : ‘I’m not buying anything duty free.’

‘Oh, I see. My apologies. Go right ahead.’

Your apologies indeed!!!

That was the exact moment I realised there was a self-service checkout a mere metre away just behind a small wall in front of the pillar. And let me tell you, that self-service checkout got a real workout. I pushed those buttons so fast you could see smoke.

The thing is though, people travel thousands of kilometres by ship, one of the slowest forms of transport, just to buy the exact same minimalist cardboard boxes they can get in Tokyo, London, or New York. All the while they pass by the home of Japan’s once richest family, their guest villa, Japan’s best ramen, and also Peter Coffee, arguably Sakata’s best brew.

The lizard brain at work. It knows no bounds.

I just wish it wouldn’t infect the staff at north Japan’s biggest Muji too.

My thoughts on this are that it just comes with the territory. It’s shoganai, and I just have to *uketamo*.

It could certainly be much worse than waiting for a few minutes unnecessarily, and things like this are only going to increase (like the people at the conbinis who treat me like I’m five).

By coming in with a stance of uketamo, I feel I’ve already solved half the issue anyway.

But still.

Shibas gotta sheeb.

Tourists gotta tourist.

Cogs gotta cog.

Author’s Notes:

I couldn’t find statistics of the percentage of international tourists who visited Tohoku, rather than the number of stays. Anecdotally I heard it was around 4%. However, this is also true: Of 131.2 million total stays in Japan in 2024, only 2,105,290 were in Tohoku. 2,105,290 (Tohoku) ÷ 131,160,000 (Japan Total) = 1.6%. Tohoku is 18% of Japan’s landmass and is directly connected to Kanto / Tokyo, but Kanto / Tokyo region hoards nearly 28 times the overnight stays of the entire Tohoku region. Get out a bit more!

Written by Tim Bunting — Kiwi Yamabushi

Tim Bunting — Kiwi Yamabushi.

Enjoyed this glimpse into the quirks of rural Japan? I’ve lived here for 15 years, training as a *yamabushi* (mountain ascetic) and uncovering the bizarre cultural intersections mainstream travel guides completely miss.

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Originally published at https://www.kiwiyamabushi.com.