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Sounds like you’ve got the resources to do a “supported” bike tour. In this case, my friend rode two days down the California coast with me on his Canyon with discs and 25c tires, but we ate at bomb restaurants and stayed in a hotel w a hot tub one night and an Air BNB the second night. Since you’re committing to staying with family and eating at restaurants, if you can commit to a supported style tour without going off grid, you can pack super light and have no need for a dedicated tourer.
When you start getting into unsupported touring, you may want a bike that can carry more gear. However, if it’s your first tour going unsupported may be particularly challenging, just because you’ll be relying on the advice of other well-meaning people at bike shops and the internet to guide you rather than in your own experience. A supported tour will be a nice way to ease into everything.
Roads seemed pretty nice in Japan when I was there so I don’t anticipate you’ll need tires bigger than 28s unless you’re actively searching for dirt and gravel. There’s so much to see on standard roadways, though, that bikes with huge tires may feel like overkill. On my short tour, I wished I had tires bigger than 25c for one 20-minute stretch of my entire trip. The rest of the time I appreciated the nimble feeling of skinnier tires.
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