Uchiko is a small town in inland Ehime, but it has kept more of its old merchant self than many larger places. Its best streets are lined with yellow plaster walls, dark latticework, wax merchants' houses, and quiet shops that still feel tied to the town's Edo and Meiji prosperity.
The town made its money from vegetable wax, pressed from sumac berries and shipped across Japan. That trade left behind the Yokaichi and Gokoku townscape, the Kamihaga family's wax residence, and enough handsome houses to make a slow walk feel like the point rather than the prelude.
Uchiko is also unusually good at giving its history a human scale. Uchiko-za Theatre is still a real stage, not just a preserved shell, and the old district is compact enough to explore on foot from the station. If you are in Matsuyama or Ozu with a spare day, Uchiko is a very easy yes.