>>2840169For the gear thing, yes. Japanese people tend to take their hobbies very seriously so they will usually buy the highest quality gear for anything they do even if it’s way beyond what they actually need. Sometimes it’s the only thing they have time to do for fun, so don’t bully them about it.
As for the actual Japanese /out/ experience, it’s true that outside of Hokkaido you will never experience a true sense of remoteness like in the American wilderness because it’s just too densely populated and there will always be a town on the horizon, but there are places where you can hike all day and never see another person, so at least you can get a feeling of isolation and people even get eaten by bears every once in a while. Plus I feel like a lot of the old mountain villages with a remaining population of like three old people fit the aesthetic.
The problem with camping is that it’s actually illegal outside of designated areas, which are all plots of gravel right next to roads and towns like that. It’s dumb that there don’t seem to be any other options. Yes, there are people who camp deep in the woods illegally, but they won’t normally tell you about it and I don’t think most people are willing to take the risk. I have heard someone say the cops found them once and just asked if they had permission from the mountain owner, to which they played dumb and got a speech about how all land in Japan is someone’s property and they had to leave, but didn’t get arrested or anything. Though, if you’re a foreigner who is in the country on a visa, it’s probably a more dangerous game.
