A Ryokan is a particular type of large, luxurious traditional Japanese inn. Ryokans typically feature tatami-matted rooms, sliding doors, a large central room for socializing, communal baths and a nearby hot spring. Everything about them is traditional, from the wood and rice paper architecture to the yukata they supply for their guests to wear. Most are family owned and feature traditional Japanese room service, sometimes with very exotic food. There is a good chance the inn is run by a really short kind old lady. In works set in Japan, they are frequently featured in a Hot Springs Episode or Beach Episode. Common activities for guests include bathing, table tennis and visiting the local festival.
For more information see The Other Wiki article linked here.
Contrast Love Hotel.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime and Manga
- Bartender - Miwa's family used to run an old-fashioned hotel chain before they modernized.
- Case Closed has had at least 10 episodes set at one of these places, and in every one there has been a murder.
- Fruits Basket: The Sohma family owns one, which is run by Ritsu's mother. They visit it in the Hot Springs Episode.
- Hanasaku Iroha takes place in one with hot springs. It is focusing on its workers.
- Hanaukyō Maid Team episode 7 "Promise at the Resort". Taro takes the maids to one of these places to enjoy the hot springs.
- Here is Greenwood: Shun's family's owns a Ryokan.
- Love Hina's Hinata house was an inn before it was converted into a girls dorm. Later gets converted back into an inn by Kanako to serve one guest.
- Love Live! Sunshine!!: Chika Takami's family owns and lives in one.
- The characters stay at a Ryokan in Kyoto and one at a beach.
- Nana - Nobu in Nana is the heir of his family's Ryokan but he'd rather just play the guitar.
- In Negima! Magister Negi Magi they also stay at a Ryokan in Kyoto and one at a beach. Word of God says they are the same locations.
- Touta and Kirie also stay at that very same Ryokan in UQ Holder! during a trip to Kyoto.
- The main characters of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun go to one right after the Beach Episode chapter. Of course, Nozaki is only interested in getting reference material for his manga.
- Natsume's Book of Friends: Natsume stays at one while on the trip with his study group during which he met the young kitsune. He goes to another one later with Tanuma which Tanuma spent a lot of time at as a sickly child in order to attend a festival Tanuma never got to go to since he was always ill due to his reaction to the presence of youkai.
- In New Game!, Tsubame Narumi is the daughter of the owners of an inn in Hokkaido. Her parents want her to take over the inn, while she wants to go into the gaming industry, causing friction between them. Tsubame and the rest of the cast visit the inn for a company vacation.
- A suicide club in Paranoia Agent ends up here after several failed suicides attempts in the woods nearby. While they lie awake on their futons fantasizing about Shonen Bat killing them all right there, who should show up in the next room?
- The Patlabor: The New Files OAV Versus is centred around a Ryokan.
- Private Prince: Miyako Sakuragawa is a graduate student at Eito University against the wishes of her family, who wants her to take over their Ryokan.
- In Sk8 the Infinity, during the purported "onsen" episode, Reki is excited, thinking they're going to stay over at a luxurious ryokan where the onsen is obviously attached. Turns out he and his teen friends Langa and Miya's chaperone, Shadow, booked the run-down inn across the street, instead. They wind up barging into the ryokan due to a new friend getting hosted there, though... Then it turns out the onsen is nowhere near said ryokan.
- Skip Beat!: Sho's family runs a ryokan and his parents wanting him to inherit it with Kyoko is one of the reasons he runs away.
- In The Quintessential Quintuplets, the Nakanos' grandfather owns one of these, which they (along with Fuutarou and his family) visit during the Scrambled Eggs arc.
- In Yuri!!! on Ice, Yuri Katsuki's family runs the last remaining one in the small Kyushu town of Hasetsu; there used to be more, but most of them closed down as the town's population dwindled. It's complete with hot springs and a short old lady (Yuri's mother, Hiroko) running it.
Film - Animated
- Spirited Away: Chihiro ends up having to work in a massive youkai-only bathhouse. The owner is... well, she looks short, she's certainly old, but as for being kind...
Video Games
- The Nancy Drew game Shadow at the Water's Edge is set in a ryokan that doubles as a Hell Hotel.
- Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 features a retired lady wrestler who married into a family that runs such an inn and is trying to impress her mother-in-law.
- Persona:
- Persona 3: The school trip to Kyoto has the students staying at one.
- In Persona 3 Portable, if you play as the girl and are in a sports club, you'll go to a training camp and stay at the Amagi Inn seen in...
- Persona 4: Yukiko Amagi's family runs a famous one, which she is being raised to take over. While Yukiko initially feels chained down and unable to choose her path in life, she loves the inn and thinks of the people who work at it as being like family, so by the end of her Social Link, she resolves to stay in Inaba and inherit the inn.
- In Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, one of these inns becomes your home base during a chapter of the game. It's complete with a hot springs and a short old lady.
