I was thinking about Japan too. In situations like store prices, Japan is pretty transparent, having the total price including taxes displayed up front. But for

I was thinking about Japan too. In situations like store prices, Japan is pretty transparent, having the total price including taxes displayed up front. But for various live shows/concerts there's typically a mandatory "drink fee" of 500 or 600 yen, cash only, that you pay separate to your ticket. (The ticket can usually though not always be paid with a card on a site, sometimes with a benefit of a small discount for purchasing at least a day early, minus a CC processing fee.) The drink fee is usually listed in the advertising for the event, though, so it's not as hidden as some of the hidden fees this new rule is trying to address, but it's still always felt odd and the cash-only aspect gives a sense of maybe being tax-dodging related. I haven't stayed at a 1600 yen capsule hotel before, but my favorite one-step-above (small private rooms, shared bathrooms on each floor) hostel-lite, which is usually two to three times that amount (when they have availability, I think too many other people discovered it), started charging like a 100 yen towel exchange fee if you wanted a fresh towel during your stay. Then at bigger hotels you start getting into extra taxes (a few hundred yen per night) when your rate exceeds 10,000 yen. Especially when your rate fluctuates over a stay, it's just a weird small amount of extra hassle you have to pay when you check in separately from the online system, though the systems do usually mention somewhere that there might be additional tax related fees when you arrive. Still, it all feels pretty smooth vs. US hotels where if they include for example any snacks in the room or drinks in the fridge you don't even want to touch them for fear of a surprise $20+ charge later. (A work friend did successfully win against a hotel that tried to charge him drink fees; their "smart" fridge detected he removed some drinks from the fridge to make room for his stuff, it did not detect that he put them back, and these weren't the kind of drinks that would spoil if left out.)