I.H.T. Special Report: Global Clean Energy Oct. 1, 2012 YUZAWA CITY, JAPAN — Tarobee Ito, 69, is the guardian of a family legacy that has survived for more than 12 generations, since the middle of the Edo period: He manages Tarobee Ryokan, a traditional Japanese onsen ryokan, or hot spring inn, named after an 18th-century ancestor who established it as one of about a dozen inns at the Oyasu thermal gorge near Yuzawa City in Akita Prefecture, northern Japan.