Yoshida doesn’t expect foreign visitors to return until cherry blossom season next year. It is also boosting mail-order sales and has introduced colorful face masks in a psychedelic flurry of hues and bear-shaped pouches useful for carrying hand sanitizers. “Then suddenly no one could come.”Ħ%DOKIDOKI opened 26 years ago and has a loyal following: when it was imperiled by the pandemic downturn, supporters in and outside Japan started up crowd-funding campaigns to keep it afloat. “We had so many foreign customers before the pandemic,” she said.
