Government Opens 'Spirit World' After Missing Inbound Tourism Target; Duty-Free Shop Opens at Sai no Kawara

On the 21st, the Japan Tourism Agency officially approved the “Spirit World Inbound Promotion Plan (Go To Heaven & Hell)” as a catalyst to boost stagnant inbound tourism demand, allowing visitors from outside the mortal realm. This is based on the government policy of “aiming to be a diverse tourism-oriented nation that is not restricted by the presence of legs or the beating of a heart,” and designates the Obon period as a “Spiritual Super-Peak Season.” Accordingly, “Yomi (Underworld) Dedicated Gates” have been set up at major airports and sacred mountains. In place of conventional facial recognition systems, “Grudge Authentication (Grudge-ID)” has been introduced to measure the strength of lingering attachments.

The highlight is a government-approved duty-free shop that opened at Sai no Kawara, a famous tourist spot in the spirit world. Here, “Stone Stacking Experience Sets (with glue)” for accumulating virtue and “Lingering Regret Enhancement Supplements” that extend one’s stay in the mortal world are selling like hotcakes. First-day sales reached an estimated 3 billion hell money (equivalent to about 30,000 yen), but because most payments are made with “leaves” or “hell money” that gains value when burned, confusion continues on the ground. One duty-free shop manager cried, “Customers’ hands are translucent, so contactless payments don’t respond. The cash registers open on their own due to poltergeist activity.”

Contrary to expectations for economic effects, the impact on the financial system is also growing serious. In the underground vault of the Ministry of Finance, a massive quantity of fallen leaves and paper-made imitation banknotes submitted as tax payments physically overflowed. The current Governor of the Bank of Japan—not the spirit of former Governor Haruhiko Kuroda—was forced to request an emergency exorcism and asset assessment from the chief priest of a major Shinto shrine. A BOJ source, looking exhausted, remarked, “The non-physical economy is literally being eroded by an ’economy without substance.’ We are busier pasting paper talismans (ofuda) than printing paper banknotes for monetary easing.”

Furthermore, concerns are rising over “over-ghostrism” instead of overtourism. Hotels in Tokyo are flooded with complaints that “unfamiliar foreign ghosts are standing by the bedside in the middle of the night,” but hotels repeatedly give bullish explanations, calling it a “cross-cultural exchange plan with no additional charge.” Although the government advocates “realizing a multi-death co-existence society where the living and the dead live together,” a famous temple in Kyoto confessed its true feelings: “Honestly, we just want them to attain Buddhahood.”

Experts are critical of this deregulation, stating that the government “opened a forbidden door just to make the numbers match.” Professor Osorezan Itako of the Faculty of Spiritual Economics at Todo University warns, “Ghosts tend to become repeat visitors, but there is a risk that they won’t leave once they possess you. If ‘illegal possession’—a play on illegal stay—increases, exorcism costs, rather than social security costs, will squeeze the national budget.” There are rumors that the government is considering “Galactic Inbound” for aliens and “Mantle Tourism” for subterranean dwellers as their next steps, as Japan’s tourism policy becomes increasingly lost in confusion.

Stakeholder Comments

• Commissioner of the Japan Tourism Agency: “Numbers are everything. Even if they don’t have legs, or if their presence is faint, they are gods as long as they drop foreign currency (hell money).”
• A Floating Spirit (3rd day in Japan): “I got flagged at the immigration ‘Grudge Authentication,’ but when I told them about my lingering regret for Japanese sushi, they granted me special permission. The sushi toppings are so fresh, I feel like passing on in peace.”
• Ministry of Finance Staff: “Every time I open the vault, cold air blows out and fallen leaves dance around. Do we get overtime pay for this? Or is it exorcism compensation?”
• Demon of Sai no Kawara (Security Guard): “I’m so busy managing the queue at the duty-free shop that I don’t have time to make them stack stones. The dead these days have no manners.”
• Governor of the Bank of Japan: “I said quantitative easing, but I didn’t say spiritual easing.”
• Chief Priest of a Temple in Kyoto: “Inbound visitors are walking straight through the temple hall. Even when I try to collect the admission fee, my hand just passes through thin air.”
• A Major Travel Agency: “The ‘Go To The Other World’ campaign is highly popular. One-way tickets are particularly in demand.”
• Exorcist: “It’s the return of the bubble economy. Although, the payment is in fairy gold.”
• Economic Analyst: “The GDP (Gross Domestic Phantom) will certainly rise, but its contribution to the real economy is unclear.”
• Ordinary Citizen: “The town is somehow chilly. It’s summer, but we need heating, and I’m troubled by the rising electricity bills.”

International Expressions

Haiku

• Spirits arrive / Just to make the inbound / Tourism numbers match
• Hell money / Dancing through the city streets / Late summer twilight
• At the border gate / Grudge authentication fails / Denied entry here
• Piling up dry leaves / At the bottom of the vault / Finance officers
• Ghosts also rush / Swept up in a shopping spree / At Sai no Kawara
• Tourist spots / Bustling with visitors / Who have no feet
• Faint shadowy guests / Welcoming them warmly with / Hospitality
• Exorcist bookings / Fully occupied and filled / During peak season
• Translucent hands / Slipping past cash register / Dine and dash ghosts
• Passing on forgotten / Standing in the long queue / Duty-free shopping

Kanji / Chinese Characters

政府霊界門開放 足無客歓迎新針 恨認証導入黄泉 金庫木葉溢日銀 賽河原免税店盛

Emoji

👻✈️🇯🇵🛂🧿💸🍂🏦🙏⛩️

Onomatopoeia

Whoosh-ghostly-sound, click (authentication sound). Rustle rustle, flutter flutter (sound of falling leaves). Ding, namu namu. Shiver, shudder. Clink (hell money), float float.

SNS

• #SpiritWorldInbound
• Shibuya scramble crossing is literally filled with footless people, lol
• Is it true that sutras can be heard from the basement of the MoF? #ParanormalActivity
• A demon is operating the cash register at the duty-free shop lmao
• The time I got yelled at for trying to pay taxes with hell money
• #GrudgeAuthentication Faster and more convenient than face ID (if you’re dead)
• Apparently our hotel started a ghost-only plan. Room service is just incense.
• The Starbucks at Sai no Kawara sold out of Stone Stacking Frappuccinos 😭
• Mobilizing even the dead to meet inbound tourism targets, Japan is finished
• At a matchmaking bar with a ghost right now. The conversation isn’t flowing (silence)