JAPAN – The New Otani Hotel in Tokyo // You Only Live Twice (1967)
Tokyo might be a megacity – but there is an location of peace right in its center. The New Otani luxury hotel has a 400-years old Japanese garden, an oasis of its kind. Only Bond can’t enjoy the place: He gets attacked here twice.
Why Bond was here
In Japan, James Bond (Sean Connery) and his Japanese spy aide Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) are on the trails of Osato Chemicals, a company in line with the crime organisation SPECTRE. Bond enters the Tokyo headquarters of Osato Chemicals twice, once infiltrating as a spy, once disguised as an investor. In reality the company building is a famous Tokyo luxury hotel: the New Otani.
How you gonna get there
The New Otani is an oasis. The luxury hotel is in the midst of busy Tokyo, a megacity filled with traffic and noise. Yet, the hotel, surrounded by a quiet 400-year old Japanese garden, offers silence and relaxation.
It is right in the heart of Tokyo’s Chiyoda neighborhood and you can reach it with several subway lines in a short walking distance. The Marunoichi Line connects via Yotsuya Station, the Ginza Line via Akasaka-Mitsuke Station and via Yurakucho Line you can get to the New Otani from Kojimachi Station.
The hotel consists of actually three hotels: “The Main” and the “Executive House Zen” are in the old building and the “Garden Tower” is in the bigger, adjoining hotel tower. Head for the northern entrance of “The Main” to see the location, where Bonds arrives to and leaves the building. The Otani letters are changed with an Osato logo for the filming. Then head to the garden for the additional scenes.
Impressions from the New Otani aka Osato Chemicals from “You Only Live Twice”
Good to know
The hotel opened for business in 1964. Former sumo ringer Yonetaro Otani owned the land and made some fortune in the steel industry – the Japanese government then asked him to jump into the hotel business for the Olympic Games held in 1964 in Tokyo. The “new” in New Otani is a nod to always have fresh ideas, the hotels assistant director Sayuri Tanaka told us during our visit. “We are very proud of the hotel history”, she said. “And we love, that Bond is a part of it.”
The main building still looks like in the movie, with the marble pillars and the parking lot in front of the entrance. Bond enters the Osato Chemicals headquarter to crack open the safe of Mr. Osato. But only the exterior of the office building were used. The interior is a Pinewood set. What is supposed to be Osato’s office – the iconic dish top – is a luxury restaurant with a superb 360-degree view at Tokyo. Guests can enjoy fresh sushi, tempura or teppanyaki, but Western cuisine as well. Even more delicious is the Japanese teppanyaki restaurant in the historic Japanese garden of the hotel.
That garden is a Bond location as well. When Bond is chasing the villain who killed Henderson, he is running through this garden. After tackling the enemy, a small fight takes place on a piece of grass with deer statues in the back. The deer statues are now on a new place, but you can find them right behind the Momiji-tei teppanyaki restaurant. The garden’s red bridge is also in a scene from Bond’s ninja training. An intruder attacks him. The fight is a camouflage location: The rest of the scene was actually filmed at Himeji Castle.
Today, the New Otani has 1474 rooms in total, hosting business travellers, movie stars and luxury guests as well. It is also famous for wedding receptions, especially in the spring time during cherry blossom season, Sayuri Tanaka told us. Or in autumn, when the gardens maple trees turns to a flaming red. Every weekend has between 10 to 15 wedding receptions.
During our visit we enjoyed a nice and relaxing Afternoon Tea at the hotels “Garden Lounge” restaurant with sweets and sandwiches. We had a look at the beautiful Japanese garden from full-height windows while the sun slowly bathed the exterior in golden light. From the café there is a direct entry to the garden. We roamed it twice, discovering the waterfall, the red bridge and, of course, the deer statues.
© 2025 Huntingbond (1,3,4,gallery), © 1967 Danjaq S.A. (2)