I got my itinerary for next February for my best friend and I. A coworker recommended we get a hotel in Ikebukuro. Any other recommendations for places to check out? Preferably places that are still pretty nice but not overtly touristy. For as much as we love Persona 5, I don't think we want to deal with all the traffic and dealing with a bunch of other tourists. I kind of just want to be check it out and see all there is, even as an anime fan I've wanted to see Japan for all things Japanese since I was a kid.
The places my coworker also recommended are:
>Hamakura
>Enoshima
>Yokohama
>Kawagoe
>Saitama
>Asakusa
>Llueno
>Kyoto (recommended 4 nights here)
I reckon it'll snow a lot but I've barely been in places where it snows consistently and get a pretty enamored by it. My best friend is hoping to meet some girls but how much look does he have if he's 5'10, brown mexican american, and covered in tattoos. I'm 6ft and am a white american beaner so maybe if I'm with him the odds are better? Also we both studied about a semesters worth of Japanese so not enough for a conversation but enough for the basic greetings, questions, and typical responses.