The appreciation of what is referred to as countryside capital (Eimermann, 2016), and the ensuing and renewed attention, raises myriad concerns, especially regarding the extent to which rural communities can absorb and adapt to the growing demands for constrained provisions of housing, services and amenities, among other exigencies. This has manifested as threats to the way of life of incumbent communities and their social and ecological inheritances, and as a barrier to the attraction of in-migrants. On balance, contestations suggest that tourism expansion might not be worth the imposition for resident communities because of the transformed and heightened contest for space and amenity, and the subsequent ripple effects that tends to be induced. It is obvious that tourism is at the vanguard of the revived clamour for the rural idyll, but unless in situ communities are active participants shaping the nature of this expansion, the capacity for development to prioritise their interests will remain constrained. In some countries like Japan, the renewed interest in the rural periphery has boosted attempts toward employing tourism as a vehicle for rural revitalisation, and what have been sleepy backwaters for the most part, are now undergoing renewed interest and revitalisation (Cheer et al, 2022; Qu & Cheer, 2021). Queries and solid understandings as to how the resulting transformations are likely to play out, and the subsequent implications for the management and planning of tourism expansion at the rurally periphery, has generally lagged visitation growth. In this paper, research from medium term engagement in rural Japan is leveraged contesting the revitalisation agenda. I argue that revitalisation efforts may be futile if inertia reigns over economic and demographic agendas and are at odds with reviving countryside capital.