Japan's largest landlord told reporters in 1945 he would not regret going from 1,500 chō to 5, and the 1946 law left a resident landlord about one

The Honma family of Sakata were merchants who lent money to the Shōnai and Yonezawa domains in the 18th century and bought farmland on a large scale. Japanese reference works describe them as a "thousand-chō landlord." In 1813 the fourth head, Honma Mitsumichi, built a villa as a rest house for the domain lord. In December 1945 Allied translators recorded the words of Honma Motoya, 62, head of the family and president of the Sakata city assembly, "long noted for being the largest landlord in Japan." He said the family had been selling land to good tenants since 1927 and still held about 1,500 chō, down from 1,700. He said 90 percent of his tenants were content, and that he would not regret a cut to 5 chō. The law of 21 October 1946 went further. The state bought all tenanted land of absentee owners. A resident landlord kept tenanted land averaging about one chō (four in Hokkaido), and total holdings averaging about three. The price was capped at 40 times the rental value for paddy. The family's holdings were largely broken up by the reform. In 1947 the villa and its garden opened as the Homma Museum of Art, and a new gallery was built in 1968.