Tatami makers, for years in retreat before the march toward Westernization, are now trying to reverse the trend and capitalize on the merits of a traditional home lifestyle, from the dining room to the living room to the bedroom.
Although houses still tend to have one or two tatami rooms, they are a far cry from some of the homes of old in which the entire floor was covered with the mats. And today, condominiums consisting entirely of Western-style rooms are becoming dominant.
Shipments of tatami have been dropping, and in the last decade the number of tatami stores has almost been halved to about 12,000.