Once an under-the-radar sakura spot, this neighborhood near Shibuya has become dangerously congested.

Around 20 years ago, Nakameguro was still one of Tokyo’s less famous, if-you-know-you-know cherry blossom viewing places. That’s no longer the case, though, as it’s become one of the city’s hottest sakura spots, particularly with a young adult crowd that flocks to the tree-lined streets that run along the sides of the Meguro River. The food and drink vendors are a little fancier than what you’ll usually find at cherry blossom venues, and the large number of fashionable cafes, pubs, and restaurants nearby make for an easy segue into an after-blossoming-viewing party or date, as does the fact that Shibuya is just a quick two-stop train ride away.

Last year some 2.3 million people visited Nakameguro during cherry blossom season, and the crowds aren’t expected to be any smaller this year, especially with several days of rain since the opening of the flowers likely to funnel a large proportion of visitors into the neighborhood on the days when the weather is clear.

Nakameguro is going to look a little different this year, though, as the neighborhood has put up large opaque screens to block the view of the cherry blossoms from one the most popular positions to see them from. As shown in the video below, the bridge closest to Nakameguro Station now has large, opaque banners stretching across its sides. Though the pink color imparts a bit of springtime cheer, the messages written on them say “No stopping” and “One-way,” commanding a ceaseless and unidirectional flow of pedestrians along each sidewalk.

Because there are cherry blossom trees on both sides of the river, the bridge, ordinarily, provides a line of sight which lots you take in the full scale of the scenery, and the way the branches from opposite sides stretch out towards each other over the water, it also makes for a beautiful photo backdrop for pictures with friends or selfies. However, unlike many other famous Tokyo cherry blossom venues, such as Ueno Park, Nakameguro’s trees aren’t located within a space that was designed to accommodate a huge amount of foot traffic. The streets from which the cherry blossoms can be seen are more or less alleyways running behind and between various businesses and apartments. The bridges’ sidewalks aren’t particularly wide, so during cherry blossom season people often end up standing in the street as they wait or shuffle to get one of the prime spots to take pictures from. Since the bridges help connect parts of the neighborhood with each other, though, residents and workers still need to be able to drive across them, so having crowds spilling off the sidewalks presents a safety issue, which prompted the local shopkeeper association to make the difficult choice to, for the first time, put up the view-blocking screens.

The decision is reminiscent of what happened in the Yamanashi Prefecture town of
Fujikawaguchiko. In 2024, unanticipated tourist crowds coming to see the view of Mt. Fuji rising from behind a convenience store overwhelmed the stretch of sidewalk from where it could be seen, and so black screens were installed to block the view of the mountain.

In the section of the above video where local residents are interviewed, one man mentions that “there are a lot of foreigners,” but speaking from personal experience, the riverside streets during cherry blossom seasons were already very congested, and with a majority-Japanese crowd, long before Japan’s current inbound foreign tourist boom, even if the neighborhood has long been popular among the expat community. The video also mentions increasing concern about litter in the neighborhood during cherry blossom season, but the shopkeeper association doesn’t cite this as a reason for the view-blocking screens.

It’s worth noting that the plan currently seems to be only to have the screens on the bridge closest to Nakameguro Station, the primary entry point for visitors to the neighborhood, and views from the streets along the river, as well as the other bridges, appear to remain unobstructed. However, we’ve already seen one city in Japan choose to cancel its cherry blossom festivities entirely because of overcrowding-related bad manners, so if you are headed out to Nakameguro to enjoy the sakura, remember to keep it moving on the main bridge, and to keep it classy everywhere.

Source: Teleasa News
Top image: Pakutaso
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