The Japanese and the Sea
In 2027, a new ship will grace the waters of Tokyo Bay. Her name is Amane (海音) — the sound (音) of the sea (海). Sailing from Tokyo’s Tennozu Isle, guests will be treated to refined meals framed by the slow drift of the city lights as this intimate craft traces a gentle three-hour course through the bay.
Amane has a predecessor: Lady Crystal, a dining vessel that has plied Tokyo Bay for more than 30 years. After three decades of service, she is approaching a landmark transition.
To retire or to carry on.
A clear decision has emerged: the birth of Amane, an advanced new vessel that will continue to nurture a culture of cruising in Tokyo Bay.
Her owner is Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK Line), a shipping company that operates more than 800 vessels worldwide. Why would a company of that scale devote such care to a single vessel just 48 meters long? To understand, we must go back more than a hundred years.
The Long Voyage That Gave Rise to a Culture
There was a time when crossing the sea was a great undertaking — more than a month to Europe, nearly two weeks to the west coast of North America. In that era, a ship was the only way for the Japanese to reach the wider world.
One of the companies that opened those routes was NYK Line, founded in 1885. What began as a coastal service soon reached across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and by 1935 Japan had become the world’s third-largest maritime power, behind only Britain and the United States. At the heart of that ascent was the NYK fleet.
In the beginning, ships carried mainly cargo. In time, passenger travel also emerged as one of shipping’s central roles. A luxury liner that came to define that age was Asama Maru, completed in 1929.
Queen of the Pacific
Asama Maru measured 178 meters in length and could make 21 knots. She featured a lounge, library, swimming pool, and theater, while her first-class dining room and reading room were finished in classic British style. Surpassing many of the great foreign liners, she won acclaim from European and American travelers and came to be known as the “Queen of the Pacific.”
But the reality is that travel in those days was far from easy. Passengers spent entire weeks on board, surrounded by nothing but the open sea. How could that time be made truly rich and fulfilling? Perhaps it was those long voyages that gave birth to the passenger-liner culture of the age.
French Cuisine on the Open Sea
One of the defining pleasures of life on the ocean was the cuisine. In 1916, a culinary training institute was established in Yokohama under chefs invited from France. The lead chef’s monthly salary was 1,000 yen — at a time when the company president earned 1,200 yen a month.
Only those who had mastered the preparation of hundreds of dishes at this training institute were permitted to work in a passenger liner’s galley. Such was the standard of the day.
The chefs trained at this institute became the backbone of shipboard kitchens. Over time, their reputation came to rival that of the Imperial Hotel and Ueno Seiyoken. And when former ship chefs opened restaurants ashore, their craft became one of the wellsprings of modern Japan’s Western cuisine.
Delightful Service, and a Cellar Beyond Compare
Not all who sailed these ships were Japanese. Charlie Chaplin, the king of comedy, was among the notables who sailed on NYK ships. In 1932, after finishing “City Lights,” he chose Hikawa Maru for the return leg of his visit to Japan. Records note his reasons: the food was delicious, and the atmosphere quiet and homelike.
Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Jean Cocteau — the names of the world’s most celebrated figures appear on the passenger lists of NYK Line. From Japan, the Takarazuka Revue sailed on NYK ships to and from its European performances, and Japan’s delegation to the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics chose NYK for its trans-Pacific crossing.
It was on the deck of Kashima Maru that Cocteau happened to find himself sailing alongside Chaplin. Bridging the gap between English and French with gestures and improvisation, the two are said to have talked of life and of art. Of the ship, Cocteau later wrote: “The service was delightful, and the wine cellar beyond compare.”
When the Passengers Vanished
Yet even this golden age of great ocean liners gradually began to fade. In 1939, World War II erupted in Europe. One after another, European routes were forced to suspend service, and the seas gradually assumed a wartime atmosphere.
In December 1941, with the outbreak of the Pacific War, civilian ships the world over were placed under military control. NYK’s once-glamorous passenger liners were no exception. Of the 76 cargo-passenger ships counted before the war, one after another was requisitioned by the military and converted into transport and hospital ships — and eventually lost to the flames of war.
Only one survived: Hikawa Maru. Her hull painted white and marked with a red cross as a hospital ship, she struck mines three times and yet never sank, living to see the war’s end.
After the war, Hikawa Maru returned to service on the Seattle route. But by the 1950s, the age of air travel had begun in earnest. Travelers seeking speed increasingly took to the skies, and ocean voyages rapidly lost their share of passenger traffic.
In 1960, NYK’s regular passenger service was discontinued, and Hikawa Maru was retired. The following year, in 1961, she was permanently moored off Yamashita Park in Yokohama. The age when ships had connected Japan to the world had, for the moment, come to a close.
From a Means of Travel to a Place to Savor Time
After postwar reconstruction and rapid economic growth, people’s lives grew more prosperous. By the 1970s and 1980s, a new idea of travel began to take hold: not simply moving quickly but valuing how one spends the journey itself. Around the world, the cruise industry was growing fast, and the major Western cruise lines had begun to eye the Japanese market.
Against this backdrop, NYK began to weigh a return to the passenger-ship business. But reentering a business it had once abandoned was no easy decision.
To stay out, or to begin again.
“I don’t want us standing there kicking ourselves, wishing we had built passenger ships when we had the chance.” Those words from NYK’s president at the time are said to have settled the matter. Some 30 years had passed since NYK’s withdrawal in 1960.
An Intimate Cruise on Tokyo Bay
Among the ships that emerged from this decision was Asuka, which entered service in autumn 1991 — the largest Japanese-flagged cruise ship of her time, designed from the keel up to recapture the spirit of the prewar liners.
Another, born from an internal proposal by younger employees, was Lady Crystal — a small dining vessel with Tokyo Bay as its stage. Offering meals and sea views over two- to three-hour sailings, she represented an intimate new style of cruising, entirely different from the long ocean crossings of the past.
More than 30 years have passed since then. A ship is no longer merely a means of getting somewhere. What had once been the sole way to connect with the world has become a place to savor time itself — weekend dinner cruises, summer family journeys, long voyages after retirement. Time at sea has become something shared by more and more people.
Even as times have changed, people have continued to choose cruises again and again. When asked why, the answer is always the same: the food is excellent; the service is impeccable; some vistas reveal themselves only from the water.
On Tokyo Bay, Embracing the Sound of the Sea
Amane — the sound of the sea — will be an intimate vessel that glides across Tokyo Bay over the course of about three hours: a serene space framed by sweeping sea views where guests can savor French cuisine refined through the grand tradition of the great ocean liners.
Before you unfolds a Tokyo you can encounter only from this vantage point.
How can we make our time on the water more deeply enriching? A new vessel sets sail bearing an answer shaped and refined over more than a century. From Lady Crystal to Amane, meaningful moments journey onward, accompanied by the timeless, graceful sound of the sea.
