A low chabudai table sits at the centre of the room, zaisu chairs still positioned around it. Cushions rest on the tatami. Shoji screens stand intact, their washi paper diffusing green-tinted light from the forested hillside beyond the balcony. A red CRT television and rotary telephone sit on a shelf beside a veneer-clad heater unit. Broken porcelain lies scattered across the tatami near the wall. Dust coats every surface.
Kinugawa Kan operated as a ryokan in the Kinugawa Onsen resort district of Tochigi Prefecture. The hot spring town's tourist economy contracted sharply through the 1990s and 2000s as visitor numbers fell. The hotel closed and never reopened.