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It all started when Tsukimi Ayano returned home - She had moved to Osaka when she was still in school, and she'd gotten married and had children, but Ayano returned to her village in 2003 to take care of her father. What she found surprised her.

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It was nearly empty - The village, which once had a dam and a population of 300 people, had dwindled to less than 40. Most of the residents, much like Ayano, had left for bigger cities.

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An aging and disappearing community - With little reason for immigration, as young residents left or old ones passed, there was no one left to fill their void.

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Quietude birthed a crazy idea - Ayano had a unique solution for her problem.

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She made her first scarecrow around 15 years ago - It was initially to frighten off birds pecking at seeds in her garden.

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The first one was in the likeness of her father - People started interacting with the scarecrow, thinking it was actually him in the fields. Ayano's next idea surprised even herself.

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She decided to make more - Ayano started creating life-size doll replacements for each of the former villagers. 

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More than a decade later, she’s still making them - The hand-sewn creations are frozen in time, creating a tableau of daily life.

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They're all from her memory - Each doll is placed specifically where Ayano remembers them most clearly, like this perpetually fishing figure.

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There are 10x more dolls than humans - Without the warmth of nostalgia, the surreal village often seems creepy, pairing dead silence with hundreds of button-made eyes trained on you.

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Around 350 of the giant dolls reside in the village - At a quick glance, Nagoro seems to have never lost those that died or abandoned the village, as they're just waiting at bus stops and lingering around empty houses.

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Or working the fields - Though it appears Ayano does most of the real work in town.

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The old school shut down in 2012 - The school population dwindled to just two students and one teacher. Now, it’s a full class every day.

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She is constantly making new figures - Made with straw, fabric, and old clothes, Ayano never tires of repairing or making new dolls.

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The dolls aren’t permanent either - They actually live much shorter than humans, wearing out quite quickly and lasting up to three years maximum.

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She even made a doll of herself - Ayano, too, passes through the village like a ghost while her doll watches the pot and the fire.

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The village is not the only one of its kind in Japan - Regarding the dolls, yes, but the hit it took from inhabitants flocking to cities for work actually affects many villages in Japan's countryside, and often leaves mostly the retirees behind.

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A microcosm of Japan - Its dwindling numbers are representative of the entire country, whose population has been falling for a decade.

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A spooky reality - Only made even slightly more creepy with the human-like figures swaying lifelessly in the wind.

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Ayano's intentions were sincere - In a documentary titled 'The Valley Of Dolls,' Ayano says that when she makes dolls of dead people, she envisions them when they were alive and healthy.

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She says the dolls are like her children - Appropriately so, since she brought them all to life and tends to them regularly.

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They're not what you think - She says she doesn't make these scarecrows because she's lonely, and she doesn't think of them as a project or as art.

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Making them just brings her joy - It was a way to enjoy her time in the quiet village. 

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She speaks to them every day - "Every morning, I just greet them," she says. She adds that she never gets a response, but that it doesn't matter or deter her from doing the same the next day. 

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The hardest part? - For Ayano, the biggest struggle is creating the dolls' facial expressions. The lips in particular are very difficult, because a little tweak can make them look angry.

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Her goal wasn't to create something strange - In the documentary, Ayano says she doesn’t like making weird dolls, but rather prefers to create people who blend into the scenery.

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She also had her town in mind - Putting dolls at the entrance of the valley was a strategy to get people interested and to attract some attention towards her village.

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And it worked! - The regional government sponsors a Scarecrow Festival for tourists each October, though many foreign visitors find Ayano on their own. 

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She’s not afraid of dying -

It takes 90 minutes to get to a proper hospital from Nagoro, but Ayano is comfortable with the fact that she may very well die there. “I’ll probably live forever,” she jokes.

Sources: (Vimeo) (NY Times)

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