A Japanese Town Put Up a 20-Metre Screen to Stop Tourists Photographing Mount Fuji Above a Lawson. Within a Week It Had Around Ten Holes, All at Eye Level and Just the Right Size for a Camera Lens.
Mount Fuji can be photographed from a great many places in Fujikawaguchiko, a lakeside town of about 10,000 people in Yamanashi Prefecture. One of them became more popular than the others. From a narrow stretch of pavement in front of a dentist's office, across a busy road from the Lawson outlet by Kawaguchiko Station, the snow-capped volcano appears to sit on the convenience store's roof. The picture spread on Instagram and TikTok, and visitors came from around the world to take it again. Its essential ingredient was a chain store that AFP, explaining the attraction to foreign readers, felt obliged to describe as ubiquitous in Japan.
The pavement had not been designed for an international audience. Local officials and residents listed visitors crossing the street continuously, ignoring red lights, littering, trespassing, parking illegally and smoking outside designated areas. Kikue Katsumata, 73, a lifelong resident, told Reuters she was really happy that foreigners were coming to the town. "But when it comes to taking pictures from the Lawson, the road is a bit narrow and it can be dangerous when people dash across without using a crosswalk." The town put up signs and posted security guards.
The Dentist
The dentist's office, which supplied the foreground, had the least say in the matter. "It became not uncommon for people to yell at us when we asked them to move their cars, and for them to throw their lit cigarettes (on the ground)," it said in a statement reported by AFP. A resident of the building next to the Lawson gave CNN a fuller inventory: "leaving garbage, trespassing on the premises, smoking, eating in the parking lot or under the roofs of private homes, and trespassing on the rooftop."
In early May 2024 the town began work on the one measure that addressed the cause directly. It would remove the view. A town official was careful to explain to AFP that this was not a position on the mountain. "It is not that we do not want people to see Mount Fuji. The issue is that there are so many people who are not able to observe basic rules." The town hall was inundated with telephone calls from Japanese people, many of them not local, objecting to the plan. Trinity Robinson, a 29-year-old Australian tourist, doubted it would work. "Stop people? I don't think so because when there is a will there is a way." "People will just be on the left side of it or right side of it."
The Screen
The screen went up on Tuesday 21 May 2024: a black mesh net 2.5 metres high and 20 metres long, which together with new fences along the pavement cost the town 1.3 million yen. "Japan's majestic Mount Fuji was some 700,000 years in the making," Reuters reported, "but on one sultry May morning, it was gone." Cyril Malchand, a 45-year-old visitor from France, had read about the plan online and made a special trip to be among the last to take the photograph it was designed to prevent. He was sympathetic. "When I see that there could be problems with people crossing the road without watching cars, I don't find it that bad that they're setting up that fence," he said.
The Holes
Robinson had not considered the third option. The day after the screen went up, officials found a hole in it. By the following Tuesday they had counted around ten, all at eye level and, in the words of the Associated Press, "all apparently just the right size to fit a camera lens through." A security guard was on duty from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; the holes, a town official told AFP, appeared to have been made in the morning or evening, when no one was watching. "It's about manners. It's a shame," he said. He had also checked the results. "I tried to put a camera up to one of the holes. Did I take a good picture? In fact, I think the net came into the frame."
The official said the screen had achieved its goal of dispersing the crowd on the pavement, although it had begun to attract a different one. "There have been some people who came to see the screen itself," the official said. The town planned to attach QR codes to the netting directing visitors to the area's other attractions, including other places to photograph Mount Fuji, and said it might take the screen down once the spot became less popular online. In July, the Mainichi Shimbun reported, the black netting was replaced with a sturdier brown material, because it was often pierced and because its colour did not leave a good impression.
The Typhoon
On 15 August 2024 the town lowered the screen so that Typhoon Ampil would not damage it. When the storm had passed, it did not put it back up. "We wanted to see what would happen," a town official told AFP. "There are still some people who come to the place. But we no longer find many people suddenly rushing out into the traffic to cross the road." Another official told the Mainichi that the number of tourists gathering at the spot was on the decline. "If there is a succession of dangerous road crossings or bad manners, we will install it again." A city councillor offered CNN a verdict on the screen's three months. "Since we installed the screen in May, there have been no more people staying long in the area. We do feel it has been effective." On the afternoon of 20 August, the Mainichi found foreign tourists photographing the Lawson from the pavement in front of the dental clinic, some of them blocking it and some crossing the road where there was no pedestrian crossing, though fewer than before.
The Rest of the Mountain
The rest of the mountain was being managed by other means. In the summer of 2024 Yamanashi began charging hikers on the Yoshida Trail, the most popular route up Mount Fuji, 2,000 yen each plus an optional 1,000-yen donation, with entries capped at 4,000 a day. In March 2025 the prefecture's fee was doubled to 4,000 yen for the coming season, and neighbouring Shizuoka passed a bill to charge the same on its three trails, which had previously been free.
On 3 February 2026 the nearby city of Fujiyoshida cancelled its cherry blossom festival, an event in a park overlooking Mount Fuji, cherry trees and a five-storey pagoda, which drew about 200,000 people a year. The city cited chronically jammed traffic, discarded cigarette butts, trespassing and, according to residents, defecation in private gardens. "Behind [Mount Fuji's] beautiful landscape is the reality that the quiet lives of citizens are threatened. We have a strong sense of crisis," the mayor, Shigeru Horiuchi, said in a statement. "To protect the dignity and living environment of our citizens, we have decided to bring the curtain down on the 10-year-old festival." The city conceded that the venue might still see a spike in visitors as spring approached, the mountain, the trees and the pagoda having not been cancelled.
On a cloudy morning in August 2025, a year after the screen came down, a Japan Times reporter watched a couple in wedding attire pose outside the Lawson by Kawaguchiko Station. They were hoping to replicate a photograph, taken at the same spot with both the convenience store and Mount Fuji in the background, that had gone viral the year before.
Filed from public reporting:
- AFP — "Japan town begins blocking Mt Fuji view from 'bad-mannered' tourists"
- Reuters (via NBC News) — "Swarmed with tourists, Japanese town blocks off viral view of Mount Fuji"
- Associated Press (via NBC News) — "The screen set up to block tourist snapshots of Mount Fuji has several holes"
- AFP — "Holes poked in Mount Fuji barrier, Japan town says"
- The Mainichi — "Screen blocking view of Mt. Fuji temporarily removed at popular photo spot"
- AFP — "With tourists away, Mount Fuji barrier taken down in Japan"
- CNN — "Japanese town quietly removes its Fuji-blocking barrier"
- AFP (via Arab News) — "Mount Fuji hikers to be charged $27 on all trails"
- ABC News (Australia) — "Japan's cherry blossom festival cancelled due to fear of overtourism"
- The Japan Times — "'Mount Fuji Lawson' becomes a symbol of Japan's overtourism problem"
