Hi, I'm Masato.
This article is about what I can give back to my hometown — Shiogama in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan — through website production, and why I remain attached to building sites specifically here.
Web production works regardless of geography, so there's no practical need to fixate on Shiogama. And yet I keep marketing here: flyers, local web ads, asking for referrals.
Thirteen years ago I could do nothing for Shiogama. Today, websites I can do.
Thirteen years ago, nothing
Thirteen years ago came the Great East Japan Earthquake. I was in my second year of middle school, home after the third-years' graduation ceremony, getting ready for baseball practice. Then the quake. Every window in the house blew out; dishes, books, the TV, everything churned together. The house was half-destroyed. We evacuated to my aunt's and endured the weeks there.
There was no food; someone had to reach a supermarket. We split up to check stores across the area. But I could barely do anything. I remember being astonished that panic could immobilize a person that completely.
The route to school, the park, my own house — all of it felt frightening. I was convinced, without evidence, that stepping outside meant being attacked.
What saved me was the neighbors. We hadn't talked much recently, but in the disaster everyone cooperated and helped one another.
They gathered daily — "you okay?", "need anything?", "that supermarket's open" — and speaking calmly like that let me think: everyone is simply living, as usual. Gradually I could go outside again.
Later I went to the supermarkets, and to where the tsunami had reached. I saw adults everywhere working on recovery — less than two weeks after the disaster. While I shook at home, many people from Shiogama were moving for the people of Shiogama.
When school resumed, one friend told me he'd been volunteering there the entire time.
It floored me.
I had done nothing but tremble, and someone my own age had spent that time working for others. I wanted to do something. What could I do? And in the end — I did nothing.
Today, websites I can do
People have their roles. Friends of mine run painting companies and renovation firms; friends a few years ahead of me opened restaurants and cleaning businesses. All of them contribute to the region simply by operating here.
I build websites, working online with companies across the country. Nothing to do with Shiogama, on the face of it.
But I can help Shiogama's businesses. I've built a site for a local painting company here and helped with their customer acquisition, filed government subsidy applications on a client's behalf, and produced flyers.
Which is how I concluded my role is building websites for the people working hard in Shiogama, and spreading what makes them worth visiting.
I could do nothing back then. Websites, I can do.
I want to compete inside the frame of my hometown (the business case included)
There is a business case too: competing inside the frame of "Shiogama" is simply an easier fight.
When your competitors are national — global, really — you start to envy locally rooted businesses. You build local ties, and you get to say things like "I handled the renovation for that shop" or "I do the cleaning at that clothing store."
Having customers within eyeshot seems like it would feel rewarding in a way online work does not quite reach. Online work is rewarding too — but helping the shop you always go to just feels good.
There is also the plain fact that fewer competitors makes for an easier fight. Call it a locally embedded business. If I can compete on something only possible in Shiogama, I never have to compete with Tokyo — which is a relief. (Admittedly, for website production that is close to impossible.)
Ideally I would run free website-building workshops in Shiogama, or talks on what digital transformation gets a restaurant.
Almost no shop in Shiogama markets itself (regulars keep them full enough)
Why locals can't visit Shiogama's independent sushi restaurants
Shiogama is full of excellent independent shops — cheap, delicious, spread entirely by word of mouth. And finding them any other way is nearly impossible, because they're on no map service, no website, no social platform.
Shiogama reportedly has the most sushi restaurants per capita of any town in Japan. You'd expect fierce competition and constant crowds — not quite.
The lines form at the few places television made famous and a handful of well-known high-end restaurants. Beyond those, dozens of independent shops exist — and I, born here and a resident for 27 years, have never been to any of them.
The reason is simple: "I don't know anything about it, and walking in blind to find it expensive is frightening." Without price, taste, portion size, and formality published somewhere, it's too much of a gamble to try casually.
"Can I go in dressed like this? What if it isn't good? Are they even open today? Cash only? Do they take cards? How much should I bring? Is the chef friendly…?"
All of it genuinely runs through your head. And the conclusion becomes: "it's expensive and needs a reservation, but let's go to the famous one." Anyone in their twenties lands there. I certainly do.
The same logic blocks every other independent shop
Location and frontage matter, but this is the internet era — and today's standard strategy is cheap real estate plus online customer acquisition.
The izakaya I worked at as a student sat near Sendai Station but so far back you'd never find it walking. It poured money into online ads, filled seats, and turned a profit.
My hair salon was the same: tucked into the darkest corner of an old five-story building, elevator included, like a hideout — and kept a steady clientele purely through online spend. Cheap rent, maximized profit: that's the trend.
In a world running on the internet, Shiogama still isn't acquiring customers there. Even the famous sushi restaurants have no website. What I can do is build them. Acquisition starts with putting up a sign — and a website is a sign on the internet.
What website production can give back to Shiogama
Shiogama's independent shops keep disappearing. Competition explains it, and yet: the candy store I visited as a child closed when a convenience store arrived; a beloved izakaya folded when a chain moved in; a great ramen shop went the same way.
Watching shops I loved vanish without ever learning how to compete in the current era is genuinely wasteful and sad. Succession is its own problem — but used well, the internet can even find successors.
A website is step one of online acquisition: raise a sign, publish your products and details, let customers find and visit you. Bringing that cycle to Shiogama's independent shops is, I think, the way I can repay this town now.
The reality, though, is that small shops can't spend much online. So my part is offering site production that's inexpensive up front and keeps running costs as low as possible.
Except: without seriously working out how it functions as a business, it ends fast. If it doesn't sustain itself, it becomes temporary charity rather than lasting support.
Build a business in Shiogama. Build a company in Shiogama. Keep operating, and keep lifting the whole town — that's what I want to make.
The goal: found a website company in Shiogama and lift the town
First target: ten Shiogama businesses with websites built. To get there, I'll keep publishing toward Shiogama across every channel available.
