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This is the kind of thing that has stopped me from travelling to Japan thus far, in spite of travelling through the rest of the East Asian sphere. There's nothing I can't stand more than being crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with other tourists when travelling, and it degrades the experience so heavily I would rather not go. I have also heard from other family members who have travelled there that the tourist numbers are unbearable, which doesn't give me confidence. Everybody and their mother wants to travel there and seems to view it as the premier East Asian destination; travel is at least part-fashion, and Japan seems to be in vogue at the moment.
Having grown up in Asia, this kind of feels a bit like being a Canadian and seeing everyone suddenly wanting to go to Calgary for some reason. In my opinion, there are other places in the continent that are equally as beautiful and cultural without being swarmed with tourists, that in fact are undertouristed, and that actually need the income to assist with preservation; I would rather visit these instead of an already-overtouristed country that is so aggressively swamped with people that the tourism is probably contributing to xenophobia in Japan at this point. It's to the point that I would feel complicit in a sort of vandalism.
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