With most of the population gone, residents of a village in Japan have come up with a new plan to make it less lonely: replace people with dolls.
Fewer than 60 people live in Ichinono, and most of them are past retirement age, as younger people have left for work or education.
So, using old clothes, fabrics and mannequins, residents have created their own population of dolls to keep them company.
Some dolls ride on swings, others push carts of firewood and smile creepily at visitors.
“We’re probably outnumbered in terms of dolls,” Hisayo Yamazaki, an 88-year-old widow, told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
Hisayo Yamazaki stands next to the dolls outside her home in Ichinono.
Most families in Ichinono used to have children, Yamazaki said, but the children were encouraged to go elsewhere. “We are paying the price now,” she added
Japan has the highest percentage of people aged 65 and over in the world, according to data released by the country’s statistics agency last month to mark “Respect for the Aged Day.”
While the overall population is declining, the data showed that the population aged 65 and over hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3% of the total population.
Separate data from Japan’s Ministry of the Interior showed that the country’s total population declined for the 15th consecutive year in 2023, with a record low of 730,000 newborns but a record high of 1.58 million deaths.
Kuranosuke Kato is the only child in the tiny, depopulated Japanese village
The average age in Japan has been rising since 1950, with the figure set to reach 49.1 by 2023, according to an estimate by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
So in Ichinono, the dolls inject a little youth.
Amid the overgrown greenery, a doll girl in a sweater hood sways gently on a wooden swing, as if caught between silence and life. Her friend, a boy with a big, warm smile, stands on a scooter, ready to go.
Nearby, another doll girl in a red helmet has been placed on a bicycle.
Elsewhere, two life-size dolls in peasant clothes stand by an open metal tent in a field. The one on the left, in a hat and coat, leans forward, while another in an orange jacket stands beside it.
Under leafless trees in another part of the village, a family of three dolls gathers wood and places the logs in a clever cart.
Outside a building, surrounded by a wheelbarrow and chairs, two more dolls seem to be enjoying the sun.
Another, dressed in a checked shirt and hat, looks out over a field of crops to a few small houses in the distance.
There are some younger residents, including Rie Kato, 33, and Toshiki Kato, 31, who moved to the village from Osaka city after flexible working became possible due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Their son, Kuranosuke Kato, now 2, was Ichinono’s first baby in two decades when he arrived, according to data from the Home Ministry.
“Just by being born here, our son benefits from the love, support and hope of so many people – even though he has achieved absolutely nothing in life,” his father said.