The Japanese ¥ (Yen) has continued weakening against other world currencies including the USD. This obviously means the arbitrage continues increasing where products that are imported into Japan, eventually will become more expensive (case in point is products from Apple which occasionally go through repricing which is effectively a price increase for Japanese consumers).
For many foreigners visiting Japan, their currencies will go a longer way since they’ll get more ¥ as part of the currency exchange. As of this writing, each $1 US is ¥157. Many younger folks won’t remember when there was a time when this was over ¥200 (throughout the early 80’s) and over ¥300 in the 70’s. The yen strengthened of course during the Japanese bubble economy (1986-1991) and remained strong relative to the USD for many years (often times hovering near the 1:1 mark).
The Japanese central bank has yet to pull the trigger on intervention. The USD itself is currently strong against other world currencies due to a strong economy (currency speculators also continue moving into short yen positions which also adds downwards pressure). The US Fed also did not cut interest rates due to ongoing concerns about inflation.
Currency traders are not that much different than equities traders (with their ability to impact the market). Due to the current interest rate gap between Japan and the US, yen carry trades (where a currency investor borrows a currency carrying low interest rates and invests the money in a higher-yielding currency) is expected to continue until this gap shrinks.
Whether or not this yields actual economic positives (from actual increased demands for goods and services including electronics and automobile exports) remains to be seen (since Japanese companies/industries are notoriously gridlocked from taking advantage of macro-economics). Inbound tourism would be a natural, but this industry also has to balance overtourism (which is an issue in the usual Tokyo-Osaka-Kyoto routes).
