Used an eSim on a trip to Japan recently. I wasn't happy when I realized my IP was in Hong-Kong.

The telco is probably from Hong Kong, and using home-routed roaming, that is subscribers access the visited network through the home PDN gateway (H-PGW). When I roam with mine my IP is always from my home country. There is nothing insidious happening.

There are companies in Japan that provide esim connections that don't route via an overseas provider, e.g.

https://www.sakuramobile.jp/japan-sim-card/local-japan-esim-...

EDIT: Last time I went to Japan, I bought an esim from https://jjesim.com/esim

thank you!

Just switch on a VPN.

No reason to avoid cheap providers.

Routing through another country unexpectedly already makes your latency worse. Adding a VPN on top possibly worsens it again.

Which goes through HK and somewhere else..