City in Japan is building a giant screen to block views of Mount Fuji

The city of Fujikawaguchiko, Japan, is known for scenic spots that allow tourists to achieve a near-perfect photo of the famous Mount Fuji. With the increase in the influx of disrespectful tourists, the city decided to build a black screen to block the view of the mountain.

The screen will be placed in front of the Lawson convenience store, one of the busiest places in the area because of a photo, taken in front of the establishment, from an angle that gives the illusion that the person in the photo is in above the convenience store and Mount Fuji appears in the background. The photo captured from this specific angle became known on social media as “Mount Fuji Lawson.”

From the moment the photo became famous, tourists began to flood the area, triggering a wave of concerns and complaints from residents.

“Fujikawaguchiko is a city built for tourism, I receive a lot of visitors and the city also receives them, but there are things about their behavior that are worrying”, says Michie Motomochi, owner of a cafe near the convenience store.

The storekeeper refers to behaviors such as throwing rubbish on the ground, crossing roads carelessly, ignoring traffic lights and entering private property to take the famous photo.

According to Association Press, to curb the disrespectful behavior of tourists, the city put up signs asking visitors not to run onto the road and to use the pedestrian crossings and hired a security guard to control the crowd, but nothing worked.

With the situation becoming increasingly complicated, the solution found by the authorities was to build a black screen 2.5 meters high and 20 meters long that will almost completely block the view of Mount Fuji.

The black screen is a solution that generates controversy between tourists and locals

Anthony Hok, a French tourist, considered this measure an exaggerated reaction.

“It’s a very big solution to a not-so-big issue. Even though tourists are causing problems, to me, it doesn’t seem right,” she said.

Anthony suggested that the solution was to put barriers on the roads for safety.

Unlike the French tourist, Helen Pull, a visitor from the United Kingdom, understands the concern of the locals and says that when traveling through Japan she realized that tourism in the country is “increasing”. She also added that she respects the measure taken by local authorities.

Michie Motomochi says that don’t know how the screen can help control the flow in crosswalks and on the road and Yoshihiko Ogawa, manager of a store in the Fujikawaguchiko area, says he is not sure what a possible solution is.

Ogawa adds that the situation has been getting worse with tourists gathering on the street around 4am and 5am talking loudly and saying that sometimes they have difficulty getting their car out of the garage due to the influx of people on the street.

According to the National Tourism Organization of Japan, last year the country had more than 25 million visitors and this year the number is expected to exceed 32 million, a record that has not been surpassed since 2019.