Can Pikachu help heal a disaster zone?

A one-day event is held at a morning market in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Sept. 13. The market was destroyed by a fire following a major earthquake that hit the region in January 2024. | JIJI

Sep 20, 2026

How do you bring tourists back to a place still recovering from a disaster without turning the disaster itself into a tourist attraction? And once they arrive, how do you make sure their presence benefits communities that have already endured enormous disruption?

In Noto, Ishikawa Prefecture, the answer, unexpectedly, involves Pikachu.

Vast empty spaces stretch across Wakura Onsen, a small hot-spring town on Japan’s western coast. Heavy machinery works to clear and rebuild the streets, while piles of rubble remain beside uneven pedestrian walkways. The town’s largest and most famous hot-spring hotel remains cordoned off behind a fence, protecting pedestrians from roof tiles that hang precariously above. Just a few meters away, however, hundreds of people line up outside a tiny public hot spring now decorated with colorful Pokemon figures — an unusually large crowd for Wakura in recent years.

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