Visitors to Japan usually stick to the Eastern coastline with its famous places Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Himeji and so on. The East coast is heavily industrialised, but not the West coast.
Hagi is near the Western tip of Honshu, in the North of Yamaguchi pref. The centre is surrounded by water with the Japanese Sea in the North. Nowadays, Hagi has less then 50,000 inhabitants.
To cut it short - I've been to many places in Japan, but Hagi is my favourite. Although Hagi played an important role in modernization of feudal Japan, it managed to keep its feudal character. Virtually the entire city center is a large and unique window to old Japan as you won't find it along the East coast.