Historically, Japanese coastal commons have been regulated with strong co-management and well-protected user rights. But is there an on-going sea change in the understanding of commons and who should have rights to the resources? In Japan today we see that neoliberalism has made significant inroads into Japanese governmental thinking, societal change is on-going, and continued disasters impact local coastal people’s livelihoods and way of life. This talk touches upon these issues and presents recent changes to the fisheries law and discusses what this could mean for local communities.