Yuki’s kakashi scarecrow village

“Scarecrow (kakashi) villages” around Japan, mostly notably Nagoro in Shikoku, have been getting a fair bit of attention on the world wide webiverse, but did you know that we have our own scarecow village in Yuki-cho, just outside Hiroshima?

On approach, Kamitada [上多田] in Yuki-cho [湯来町] appears to be a bustling little village, but on closer inspection, the figures you see are not lifeforms as we know them at all.

They are in fact fabricated scarecrows; kakashi as they are known in these islands.

More like life-sized dolls than your common or garden scarecrow, they are creation of local couple, the Morimotos.

Ms Morimoto’s father first started making the dolls in 2011, since which time the scarecrow population has grown to 160, which exceeds the human population by 60. Walking around the village, at first glance it is quite impossible to determine if a figure is human or scarecrow. It is indeed a kakashi paradise.

Mr Morimoto makes the bodies and his wife works on the faces.

In response to an increase in requests, they have started making images of famous people too.

The couple work on the scarecrows in the evenings after finishing the day’s work and each figure takes about a week to finish and the population is currently growing at around one a month. They hope that their scarecrow paradise continues to attract visitors and enliven the sleepy village.

With onsen hot springs, famous konyaku countryside cuisine and even accommodation with English speaking staff available nearby why not take a trip to Riaru (“real”) Kakashi-no-sato [リアルなカカシの里] in Yuki?

To get to Riaru kakashi no sato [リアルかかしの里山] head for the Midori-kaikan [みどり会館] in Kamitada by bus from Itsukaichi JR Station.