The yen slipped to its weakest level against the U.S. dollar in nearly eight years Wednesday, reaching 123 per dollar, continuing a dramatic decline since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in December 2012.

Here is a look back at some of the ups and downs resulting from a sharply weaker yen, as reported by Japan Real Time.

The Good

Tourists at Sensoji Temple in Tokyo. Illustration: Bloomberg News

For Golden Week, Tourists Flood a Newly Affordable Japan (May 2, 2013): --The yen’s decline is transforming Japan’s reputation as a prohibitively expensive place to visit, turbocharging the country’s tourism industry, which has long been identified as a possible growth engine for the maturing economy. With a dollar now fetching close to ¥100—up from less than ¥80 in November—foreign visitors have surged, while Japanese curb overseas travel and do more sightseeing at home.

Japan Rakes in Income From Overseas, and Weak Yen Helps (Nov. 11, 2014): --In the 1980s and 1990s, Japan’s trade surpluses attracted the ire of U.S. and European companies. Now, a weaker yen is helping the nation rack up near-record surpluses of a different kind. Although Japan’s trade balance has slipped into the red, the fall in the yen is pushing up the value of Japan’s sizable overseas investments when measured in yen terms. That’s a sign Japan has shifted from an export powerhouse to an investment powerhouse, economists say.

South Korea’s Next Export Worry: Price Cuts in Japan (April 23, 2015): --South Korea’s exports are slipping just as Japan’s are picking up, as a weak yen has made Japanese goods more competitive globally. The situation could get still get worse for South Korean exporters if Japanese firms start to cut prices more aggressively in dollar terms to capture market share overseas, says Ronald Man, a Hong Kong-based economist at HSBC. Many Japanese companies have avoided that approach so far, preferring instead to book bigger profits.

Visitors with Mickey Mouse at Tokyo Disneyland. Illustration: Reuters

Tokyo Disney Resort Reigns as World’s Least-Expensive Disneyland (April 27, 2015): --Japan’s Tokyo Disney Resort is now the world’s least-expensive Disney theme park, thanks to a weaker yen. Visitors can spend a day at one of the Tokyo Disney Resort’s two parks–Tokyo Disneyland or Tokyo DisneySea–for ¥6,900, or $58.00, compared with $99 for one park at the Disneyland Resort in California and $75 in France. When the yen reached a postwar high of ¥75.31 against the dollar in 2011, a trip to the park would have cost nearly $92.

The Bad

Weaker Yen Ups Cost of Life’s Simple Pleasures (May 2, 2013): --What do Danish stools, sesame oil and toilet paper have in common? All three have gotten a little more expensive in Japan as the yen weakens. With the currency near a four-year low against the dollar and a three-year low against the euro, prices of imported goods and raw materials have risen quickly. That has forced companies such as furniture retailer Otsuka Kagu Co. to roll out their biggest price increases since 2007, when the yen began an historic period of strength that held import prices down.

Containers at a port in Tokyo. Illustration: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Japan’s ‘Hollowing-Out’ Means Weaker Yen Not Helping Much (Feb. 4, 2014): --Japanese exports aren’t as strong as you might think, despite the sharp drop in the yen’s value over the past year, showing how a “hollowing-out” of the industrial base has made it hard to kick-start growth through a weaker currency. Aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan over the past year has led to a sharp decline in the yen against its major counterparts. This has increased the value of exports, which jumped 15.3% in December from the same month a year earlier. Yet actual export volumes have been largely static, as companies have opted to keep overseas prices unchanged, choosing to increase profits instead of trying to expand market share. Meanwhile, imports have surged, rising 24.7% in December from a year earlier.

Data Show More Smaller Companies Succumbing to Weak Yen (Oct. 8, 2014): --Policy makers and corporate executives are hotly debating whether the yen’s weakness is positive or negative for Japan’s economy. The latest bankruptcy data show that for many small businesses, the impact has been more than just negative. While the total number of corporate bankruptcies hit a 24-year low for the six months to September, suggesting corporate Japan is doing well, in part helped by public works spending, a closer look at the data shows that the number of corporate bankruptcies caused by factors related to the yen’s weakness is rapidly rising.

Employees of a foreign-exchange trading company stand near monitors displaying exchange rates Wednesday. Illustration: Reuters

Abe Adviser Says Dollar at 125 Yen Would Make Him Nervous (Nov. 14, 2014): --Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has kept tight-lipped about the yen’s further slide in recent weeks, leading many to wonder if he was happy with the move. But a close economic adviser to Mr. Abe suggested that the yen now isn’t so far from levels the government might consider too weak. “If it goes to 120 yen [to the U.S. dollar], that will make me think,” Etsuro Honda, one of the architects of Abenomics, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “Well, maybe levels around 120 are acceptable, but if it weakens as much as to 125, that would make me a bit nervous, make me stop and think, ‘Is this okay?’” he said.