Japan: Where Cash is King (And How I’d Launder It)

Featuring The Shinto Shrine Kegare Conspiracy

Dec 22, 2025

I saw something on TV the other day I’d never seen before. At around 9pm on a cold winter’s night, a car was stopped at a red light. Next minute, a knock on the passenger door. A motorcyclist all in black had pulled up alongside the car. The driver then wound down the window only for the biker to grab the bag on the passenger seat and ride off.

In Japan of all places.

But the thing that got me the most?

The bag had like 280,000 yen in it.

That’s like, $2,000 US.

Or as Snake from The Simpsons would say:

Yoink.

“Score!” Image: *The Simpsons* / 20th Television.

I mean, who carries that much cash around with them?

Japanese people. That’s who.

Not all the time, mind you. So, is this just straight-up bad luck on part of the victim, or mere stupidity?

Probably a bit of both.

The TV had the decency to mention the driver of the car was a business executive, not a pleb like you or me. So, seemingly they could afford it (it may well have been the company’s money). What with being an executive you would assume they were in a pretty decent car too. Might as well have drawn a giant cash sign on the bag.

Either way, if this doesn’t prove how safe Japan (typically) is, I don’t know what would.

Safe. Yes.

Annoying all the same.

Christchurch, New Zealand. Where only suckers use cash.

I come from a place that has pretty much all but done away with cash. We’ve had cashless payments in New Zealand since before I was born. For those counting, that’s the 1980s. In Japan though, even a quarter century into the new millennium, cash is still very much king.

To be honest, it’s nowhere near as bad as before. At least now I have docomo’s e-money called d-barai, and can pay using that.

But then again, this is Japan we’re talking about. You can never get off that easy.

You see, d-barai can’t be used everywhere PayPay can. At the same time, PayPay can’t be used everywhere d-barai can. Nor Apple Pay. Nor Rakuten Pay. Nor au PAY… nor Merpay (for mermaids), nor even Suica! At least LINE Pay had the decency to merge with PayPay.

And then, take for example:

last week I paid 5,280 yen for an 11-trip ticket to the swimming pool, and that includes onsen! A real bargain! Shame I can’t earn any points on it because we have to pay by cash.
My hairdresser is another interesting story. Only accepts cash. Only ever has. Only ever will probably too, so they tell me. Convenience? Not wanting to pay the PayPay fees? Next time I’ll ask.
And then there is the local supermarket closest to my university. A supermarket. Only accepts cash. Really making my live in rural Japan feel umm… rural.

But you know what?

However rural, it’s great to live in a place where cash still flows because it proves how safe it (generally) is. I regularly carry around ¥10,000 (about $60 US). I also am guilty of leaving the keys in my car, unlocked, and going into the convenience store. I won’t leave my children in the car like some people do, I’m not that Japanese yet (I wish I were lying, but I often see this).

Which leads to the next question; why do Japanese people love cash so much? I mean, after all, cash is considered a form of Kegare, defilement or pollution of our own inner state.

Cash passes through so many unknown hands, including the grieving, the sick, the angry, and the greedy. When it reaches your hands, it’s full of the impure residue of anyone who has touched it before you. Not to mention, money also represents worldly attachment, greed, and debt.

Very un-Shinto.

(although this part sounds more Buddhist, but I digress…)

With all this in mind, you’d think Japan would be first on the cashless bandwagon, wouldn’t you?

And that’s when it hit me.

Or rather, while out doing yamabushi training after watching a few episodes of Ozark:

The Kegare Conspiracy

I found this tiny shrine in the middle of nowhere in Sakata the other day. The rock there has been enshrined.

So, we know cash is a form of Kegare. It’s the whole reason for the blue money trays in convenience stores, a form of Kegare buffer, if you will. You never hand the money over to the cashier (also one reason why tipping (rightfully) gets a bad rap). This also explains the various envelopes you need when giving anyone money.

Because, who benefits from all this use of cash?

The Shinto Shrines.

The places that get money to purify money, so to speak. The more impure the money, the more money they make from purification. Keep the economy cash-based, and you can keep the kami, and the ledgers, in balance.

And you know what, I can’t judge. That Japanese people are so poor at English is keeping me in a job! We all have our niches.

And this is why, if I were ever to launder money,

Shinto shrines are the perfect money laundering tool.

(I feel I need to say this, but this is satire, which some people, hilariously, I might add, don’t get).

If you had a mountain of “impure” cash, you wouldn’t need a shell company.

You’d just need a Shinto shrine.

Shinto shrines, or at least the ones I frequent, are famously cash-based.

It’s the perfect system: thousands of people drop anonymous, untraceable coins and notes into wooden boxes every day. Who’s counting? Who’s auditing the Kami? You just “donate” your extra 280,000 yen to the building fund, getting a tax-exempt receipt for “spiritual services,” and suddenly that Kegare is as clean as a mountain spring.

As a yamabushi (mountain ascetic) I’m often paying for people to get purified,

in cash.

I have to make sure I have the exact right amount every single time I go. They don’t accept it otherwise. I’m not entirely sure why. Something to do with that whole tax exempt-thing? (Or maybe…)

Anyway, I have to prepare that cash in advance. In an envelope, of course. Kegare and all that.

And get this:

We fax the orders in. By email (true story that doesn’t help the money laundering argument).

Which brings us back to the biker.

Who, by the way, would be reeling in kegare.

Unless, of course, they had access to a fax machine, a Shinto shrine, and a mountain ascetic who knew a thing or two about balancing books, spiritual or otherwise.

Yoink.