book best accommodation deals in Japan
I know of many travelers who still like to call or contact the respective hotels for best accommodation deals when they travel. This is especially so for accommodation in Japan, from my experience.
When we were traveling to Tokyo last year, we couldn’t locate many of the ryokans or traditional Japanese inns in the hotel booking sites so we needed to call the ryokan directly. Some may have toll free numbers for travelers to call but many of them don’t. Plus, there was a language barrier.
There are still many Japanese ryokan booking sites which can be helpful if language becomes a problem. In any case, you can still search in the web and some ryokans can still be reserved online. The rule of thumb is, always do your research to get the best accommodation deals.

