[3] The earliest known Japanese people in the Kingdom of Hawaii were the survivors of the ill-fated ship Inawaka-maru, who arrived on May 5, 1806.

Her crew consisted of Captain Niinaya Ginzo, Master Ichiko Sadagoro, Sailors Hirahara Zenmatsu, Akazaki Matsujiro, Yumori Kasoji, and Wasazo, a total of eight aboard.

[4] The Inawaka-maru was caught by a snowstorm that turned to rain and winds battered the ship eastward into the Pacific Ocean.

It took four days to build and a cook and two guards assigned to the house, which attracted crowds to these men of a different ethnicity.

He failed to establish a formal Hawaii-Japan relationship, but continued to stay there as a merchant and obtained a permission of Japanese emigration from the Edo Shogunate.

For example, Korekiyo Takahashi, whose study in the U.S. was arranged by Van Reed, ended up being sold by the host family as a slave,[5][6] but managed to get back to Japan, and eventually became the 20th Prime Minister.)

Van Reed, however, proceeded without the new government's permission to send 153 Japanese to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations.

[10] Among the Gannenmono were several people who would become legends among the Japanese Americans in Hawaii: Tomitarō Makino from Miyagi, the leader of the group; the youngest Ichigorō Ishimura, 13 years old; Sentarō Ishii, a samurai from Okayama, who was 102 years old when he died in Maui; Tokujirō "Toko" Satō from Tokyo, who lived in Waipio Valley with his Hawaiian wife, Clara; and Tarō Andō, who would become Japan's first consul general to the Kingdom of Hawaii.

On March 10 Kalakaua met Meiji to propose a marriage between Princess Victoria Kaiulani and Prince Higashifushimi Yorihito.

[12] The first 153 Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii on February 8, 1885, as contract laborers for the sugarcane and pineapple plantations.

[15] In 1900, the first group of Okinawan laborers arrived in Hawaii after Japan lifted its emigration ban on Okinawa Prefecture.

In 1893 the Hawaiian Monarchy was overthrown, Tokyo responded by appointing Captain Tōgō Heihachirō to command the Japanese naval activities in Hawaii.

[19] Captain Tōgō had previously been a guest of Kalākaua, and returned to Hawaii to denounce the overthrow of Queen Lydia Liliʻuokalani, sister and successor to the late king and conduct “gunboat diplomacy”.

Today, where Nikkei are about one-fifth of the whole population, Japanese is a major language, spoken and studied by many of the state's residents across ethnicities.

[23] Hawaii was an attractive dream destination to Japanese people for over a century, but the tourism boom began in 1964.

As Japan opened for travel abroad, huge numbers of Japanese citizens began to visit Hawaii.

Due to the large percentage of people of Japanese descent living there, it provides familiar comfort while retaining the image of a foreign paradise.

[24] The concept of amae describes the feeling of safety and dependence on others present in the Japanese tourists' image of Hawaii.

They are often returning visitors, and the Japanese concept of omiyage presents a social expectation to purchase and bring back gifts from traveling.

Overall, Japanese tourists are an important segment of Hawaii's tourism industry, which makes up 21% of the state's economy.