Lapras Event in Japan

Lapras Event in Japan is an event held from November 11 to November 23, 2016 on the coasts of the Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures, which are part of what is called the Tohoku area. Lapras spawn rate were increased dramatically to increase tourism to these prefectures because their coasts were ravaged by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

Ishinomaki

• The city of Ishinomaki has received the highest Lapras concentration out of the hundredths of kilometers making the coast.
• Ishinomaki is ~450km away from Tokyo. By car it takes around 5 hours 1-way. By train, a round trip takes around ~23000 yens (~$200) and 6 hours.
• While it's not the only town to have suffered from the 2011 tsunami, Ishinomaki indeed got large areas completely razed.
• According to people running scanners, it seems that ~16 new Laprases are spawning every hour there.
• Large congestions have been reported on the roads for the first week-end of the event.
• Local mascots are ready.
• Local specialities are ready too.
• Surge of "tourists".
• There is indeed a lot of Lapras to catch. On social media, someone reported catching a 100% IV Frost Breath / Blizzard Lapras.
• A lot of people didn't have time to reorganize their schedule for the first week end since the event was announced on Friday. Even more people are expected next week for the second and last week end.

Event Preparations

• The estimated cost of the event is supposed to be around 30,000,000 yen (~$280,000). It was actually announced 2 months ago, on September 2, that the Miyagi prefecture was planning such an event, although nobody paid much attention to that source. The initial target period reported in the article was for October.
• It was mentioning "prefecture limited Pokemon" without specifically pointing Lapras.
• The budget breakdown was :
  • 10,000,000 JPY (~$93,000) for launching and holding the event itself.
  • 15,000,000 JPY (~$140,000) in advertisement costs, Pokestops maps, tours.
  • 5,000,000 JPY (~$47,000) for "Niantic's system update".
• It was only the budget for the Miyagi prefecture. Since the current event also includes Iwate and Fukushima, it is safe to assume they separately paid different amounts to Niantic.

Other Notes

• There has been calls on Japanese social media to hold a similar event in the Kumamoto prefecture, which was struck by multiple earthquakes in 2016. Since "kuma" means bear and Kumamoto has Kumamon as a mascot, people would like massive Snorlax spawns.
• Katsuya Takasu source source, a famous Plastic surgeon in Japan, has said he's ok paying 30,000,000 yen by himself to get a similar event in Kumamoto source source.
• The current proposal from him asks for an event that would spawn in Kumamoto regional Pokemon non available in Japan (Tauros, Kangaskhan and Mr. Mime). If it's not possible, the alternative would be a Lapras spawn event similar to the Tohoku one, or a massive flood of Dratini.
• Multiple reports on reddit seems to point that Lapras spawns around the world have significantly been reduced since the start of the Japan event. In Japan too the usual Lapras spawning spots, outside of the event area, seems to have gone dry since Friday.