Yes I'm not claiming it's ideal, it'd be nice not to worry about such things as a tourist, it can't be that hard or expensive for Google to just let everyone us

Yes I'm not claiming it's ideal, it'd be nice not to worry about such things as a tourist, it can't be that hard or expensive for Google to just let everyone use the feature. But at least if you move to Japan, you can essentially get a Japanese flavored Pixel at the small cost of a factory unlock/relock.