Nagoro – A Creepy Japanese Village Where Dolls Replace The Departed

Nestled in the hidden valleys of Shikoku, Nagoro is a village that would have remained like an insignificant dot on the map, if Ayano Tsukimi, a skilled doll maker, had not been here. As per the records, when Ayano returned to her home, she was sad to witness that her once vibrant residential area is losing its charm, as people leave for big cities in search of work, and never return. So she started making life-size dolls to populate her village once again, and where the number of residents has been dwindling.

These life-size doll replacements are for everyone. She placed these dolls specifically where she remembers them—fishing in the river, working in a field—however, for many outsiders, the sight is immensely creepy.

Nagoro is a slowly shrinking village located in the valleys of Shikoku, Japan. Populated by creepy dolls, it might make you question the reality.

Its inhabitants left the village in a search of employment or died. Eleven years ago, Tsukimi Ayano returned home to Nagoro. Faced with loneliness, she has populated the village with dolls, each representing a former resident. About 350 life-size dolls currently reside in the village.

The local school is now filled with a few dozen dolls patiently waiting for class to begin. Made of straw, the bizarre dolls are dressed in old clothes. Once working in the garden, Tsukimi made the first doll in the likeness of her father and then she came up with the idea to replace the other family members with similar dolls.

10 years later, her work continues. Every doll is located in the place where she would resemble that person. So strolling along the village you will find quite unique monuments either working in the field, fishing in the river or simply sitting along the road and starring at you .

Nagoro or Nagoru, now known as Nagoro Doll Village (Japanese: 名頃かかしの里), is a village in the Iya Valley on the island of Shikoku in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. It is known for the large number of realistic dolls positioned throughout the village, which have made it a tourist attraction.

The village is located on Route 439 in the Iya Valley, a remote mountainous area. It formerly had about 300 inhabitants, but the decline in Japan's population has caused that to fall to 35 by January 2015,30 as of August 2016,and 27 by September 2019.

In the early 2000s, Tsukimi Ayano, whose family left the area when she was a child, moved back to Nagoro to look after her father, and made a doll in his likeness that she placed in a field.

She has since made more than 400, including replacements, and about 350 are in the village.Many are also likenesses of residents or former residents, while others are invented people.

Soon, others followed in Ayano's footsteps. The village school, which closed in 2012, includes a large number of dolls; in one classroom, two children are self-portraits by the last two students to study there, who dressed them in their own clothes.Other dolls include three men sitting at the base of a telephone pole on the outskirts of the village, a man fishing in the river, a group in a bus shelter, and utility workers performing roadwork.The village has become a tourist attraction and is now known as Nagoro Doll Village.

The nearby Nagoro Dam was completed in 1961 and is used for hydropower generation.

In 2020, the village was featured in the final episode of James May: Our Man in Japan, where James was made a scarecrow based on his likeness.

Ref: Nagoro – A Creepy Japanese Village Where Dolls Replace The Departed (unusualplaces, wikipedia)