Welcome to the sequel article about the *Kanemochi Mansions*! Sorry that it took me a while…
In 1993 Ginza’s property king Genshiro Kawamoto, age 61 at the time, was at the height of his power and wealth – worth about 2.6 billion USD, he was the 72th richest person on the planet, owning 60 buildings in Japan (almost all named Marugen) and about 700 houses in the States. He already had a somewhat questionable reputation but furthered it even more in the 2000s when he rented multi-million dollar mansions to native Hawaiian families for next to nothing to drive down property values in the area, after evicting hundreds of families in California just a few years earlier to benefit from rising real estate prices. In the 2010s (and well into his own 80s) Kawamoto predominantly made news for tax evasion when his Marugen Group “forgot” to pay more than 1 billion Yen in taxes. In 2013 he was first arrested and in November of 2018 he was sentenced to four years in prison… and disappeared from the news; no word whether Kawamoto is (still) in prison or if he is on the run.
Back in 2019 a few adventure tourists from overseas somehow made it to Kawamoto’s abandoned cluster of private mansions in Atami, at the time a location hardly known even amongst Japanese urban explorers. Unfortunately the mix of unusual interior and lurid headlines generated millions of views, a new “must see” location in Japan was born, after *Nara Dreamland* was torn down in late 2016.
I had been documenting the natural decay of the villas since early 2016, but kept the material to myself, because I knew what could happen to locations when you drag them into the public eye – something the Youtube locusts obviously don’t care about…
In February of 2020, when the initial damage was done and Covid was about to prevent urbex tourists from entering Japan, I finally posted about the Kawamoto villas here on Abandoned Kansai under the name *Kanemochi Mansions* – my largest photo set with one of the shortest articles, containing much less information than your average video description. (In case you wonder why kanemochi – 金持ち means rich person in Japanese and was a good way to avoid Kawamoto’s real name without calling the location something really obscure. 🙂 )
So… Why now? Why this article with all the detailed information now? Well, the information here actually is not really new, other people have spread it long before me. I just wanted to show you this amazing location one more time with beautiful photos from back in the day, before the unwanted attention and questionable fame… with different weather, at different times of the year, at different times of the day. I truly love(d) the Kawamoto mansions, so I came back several times, despite the long way from Osaka. And if you know Abandoned Kansai longer than a recent Google search, you are probably aware that me writing an article like that doesn’t mean good news…
To be continued!
(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* or *follow us on Twitter* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – and subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…)
INSANE!
Wow … just WOW! I remembered the original post, but went back and read it again, and the comments from then. I agree with the comments about the furnishings. Similar things happen here in Australia. We had a lot of Italian and Greek migrants in the ’50’s and ’60’s, and those that struck it wealthy, bought furniture like that. Even the wannabe’s did it on a minor scale. I’m sure the properties would have looked so much nicer with modern contemporary furnishings.
What brilliant explores you had….my suspicion is that some of these places have beeen trashed iin recent times
Tasteless and kitschy.
What I see in these pictures is an empty life of someone who never experienced love or friendship and never developed a sense of quality. Someone who became addicted to earning money, even if it meant harming others, and who did not know what to do with that money. Someone who then fell prey to other money-makers who sold him meaningless, gilded, ornate kitsch. A tragedy.
heh, i remember this one. your pics are great as per usual, but, and i believe i wrote something similar back then too, this place is really a distasteful clusterfuck, haha.
also, it seems like its located in somewhat remote area, so demolishing it would probably just be a waste of money, so id guess its been trashed beyond recognition as per usual, lol