Otsu Warnings Or Dangers

I used to live in Otsu for a couple of years, and it was always very safe. There're a couple of things though that I'd describe more as annoyances.

First, those ultra-nationalist guys. It's easy to recognize them because they always travel in black vans with flags and many large Kanji characters painted on them. They usually drive slowly and play martial music very loud, so all the neighborhood knows when they're around.

The other thing that might be an inconvenience are the yakuzas. They're also easy to spot. They just look very flamboyant compared to the rest of the population. They usually have a perm hairstyle, might wear dark glasses, might wear lots of golden chains, might grow a mustache, might be missing one finger (amputated when they commited a mistake)... and if you happen to see them shirless, they're always heavily and colorfully tatooed.

In order to avoid problems with them, just make sure you're not on their way, try to keep a low profile.

Some of these yakuza guys (but not all of them) are looking for fights, so it's a good idea not to be on their way.

As for the ultra-nationalists, they're usually not very well educated people. It doesn't matter that you run into them. They might be kind of scary (and annoying) to most Japanese, but if you just ignore them, you should be okay.