Beppu is a spa town in southern Kyushu visited by James Bond and Tiger Tanaka on their journey to Fukuoka. Its ten officially designated volcanic “hells”—bubbling fumaroles, steaming mud, and erupting geysers—make the town a vivid sightseeing stop. A padlocked wheel beside one geyser introduces a more ominous note: the landscape is presented both as a tourist attraction and as a force with potentially destructive power.

Setting and Visit

Bond and Tiger arrive at Beppu at sunset. Tiger proposes visiting the famous geysers and fumaroles that evening because they must leave early the next morning for Fukuoka, their final destination. For Bond, the schedule also marks the approaching end of their sake and sightseeing; the trip’s leisurely interlude is giving way to its more consequential business.

Above the town, the pair tour ten features designated as “hells.” The air is heavy with the stink of sulphur, and each fumarole seems more disturbing than the one before it. Mud and geysers appear in red, blue, and orange, while warning notices and skull-and-crossbones signs keep visitors at a distance. The presentation makes the visitors’ route through the attractions a succession of carefully staged encounters with heat, mud, and volcanic activity.

The Erupting Geyser and Its Wheel

At the tenth hell, notices in English and Japanese announce an eruption every twenty minutes. Under arc lights, Bond and Tiger join a small group watching a quiet crater in a muddy rock enclosure. After five minutes, underground rumbling precedes a jet of steaming grey mud that shoots twenty feet into the air and falls back within the enclosure. The timed spectacle makes the threat visible, but also keeps it bounded for the watching crowd.

As Bond turns away, he notices a large red wheel in a separate wire enclosure. It is heavily padlocked and marked with warnings and a skull and crossbones. Tiger explains that the wheel supposedly controls the geyser’s pulse: closing its exhaust valve could, according to the notice, unleash force equivalent to a thousand pounds of TNT and destroy the establishment. He dismisses the warning as tourist nonsense and quickly redirects attention to their plans in town. The contrast remains striking: the attraction sells danger as spectacle, while the locked wheel gives that danger a concrete, manipulable form.

The Feast and Narrative Role

Tiger has arranged a fugu feast as a special treat for their last day together on this particular voyage. He describes the fish as a blowfish that inflates into a spiny ball when caught, and says its flesh is prized; he also notes that its liver and sex glands contain a poison associated with instantaneous death. Bond, recalling the eggs Benedict he had eaten the night before, silently dreads the meal. The contrast between hospitality and poison extends Beppu’s uneasy pairing of pleasure with danger.

Beppu therefore serves as more than a picturesque pause before Fukuoka. Its vivid, dangerous geothermal attractions give the sightseeing a physical edge, while the wheel and the coming meal bring the possibility of lethal force into an otherwise festive itinerary. The visit also closes a particular stretch of companionship between Bond and Tiger, with the impending departure lending their final excursion a note of transition.