Takayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Fuji, Tokyo, and Nagoya were most definitely full of tourists.

Kyoto and Takayama in particular were probably half tourists by population 2 years ago. Those towns are virtually ghost towns now that Chinese tourists are gone.

Visiting places with no foreign tourism and driven just by local industry, like Toyohashi or Yokkaichi or small islands, and you'll see considerably less cleanup efforts. Even going through Tokyo at 4 AM looks very different from Tokyo at 8 AM after some cleanup is done.

They must be, because you're a white liberal living in rural Japan and you know everything about the country. Those major cleanup efforts in small village like Bizen and Miyoshi are definitely just to impress the tourists. Crazy to learn that Nagoya is actually a tourism city, too. You're definitely not a jackass.