Name: Rural Japan is Dying (but maybe it doesn't have to...)
Uploaded: 2025-07-18T18:17:09.000Z
Duration: 15 min 53 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Present continuous

Gerund

Over 8 million abandoned homes and properties spread throughout the Japanese countryside, and that number keeps growing.

Entire islands completely emptying out, and Japanese youth flocking from the countryside to the big cities.

There's a story that isn't being told here.

A story of the countless people and youth across Japan keeping these rural areas alive, or even bringing them back.

Forming communities of like-minded individuals focused on revitalizing these areas, and doing so with success.

It may not be happening at the speed that mainstream media would like it to, but it's happening.

This is the DOYODEI festival in the small town of Kanonji in Kagawa.

This was a dead festival for over 30 years in a small, struggling community.

As you can see, it's an amazing and passionate little festival, and it was brought back with a huge push from one man in particular.

Most of our high-impact memories are built in childhood.

So local festivals like this one can help develop a deeper and more positive connection to one's hometown.

A connection that becomes ever more important down the road when they decide where they want to live long-term, or raise a family of their own.

We want to make sure that the children get to ride on the memories of their parents, and that they get to share those memories with their parents.

An aging and tiring Japanese population has led to a decline in these kind of local events and festivals due to the sheer amount of work and organization required to pull them off.

These festivals are what Japanese summer is all about.

Sometimes all it takes is one or two people with a vision and enough push to light the fire in others.

Akira-san truly believes in the area as a whole, so much that he's invested everything he has into building out a centralized lodging to experience the area from.

I've stayed there before, and it might possibly be the nicest place I've stayed at in Japan.

The very first time I came to Japan, I was in the middle of the city, and I had no idea what it was like to live in a place like this.

There's a whole private beach as well as a sauna.

I did a whole dedicated video before. I'll link it for anybody who wants to check it out.

But we're going to have a bit of a barbecue tonight. It's kind of our tradition.

I've always wanted to build a place like this myself.

I met this place a year ago, and the moment I saw the view, I knew this was the place.

I got help from the locals and opened this place.

Not just this place, but there are places like Takaya Shrine and Chichibu Gahama nearby, so I hope it gets even more popular.

The beach alone is a perfect example of all of this.

While right now it's one of the largest draws to the area, seeing over half a million visitors every single year, at one point, this whole beach was nothing more than a giant garbage pile avoided by most.

A group of local volunteers started and maintained a cleanup effort to turn it into what it is today.

Which, while not perfect, what it is today is a beach that, according to the local government, has brought in over $30 million in tourism revenue to the city and the surrounding area.

It's a really popular place to come out and grab Instagram photos or just enjoy the sunset.

Like our friend Yo-chan from the abandoned school, who moved from the mountains and insisted on living right near the beach.

If you don't know, I stumbled on Yo-chan living alone in an abandoned elementary school a few years back.

Yo-chan's new coffee shop is actually just around the corner from this place that I'm staying.

But he's doing a local event today, so I want to swing by and see how he's doing.

I love the small regional events in Japan.

More often than not, they make the difference between just visiting and actually connecting.

But they're also not often posted online, which means you kind of need to learn about them through the locals.

Now, for most people, the best way to guaranteed meet and connect with a local is going to be through a service like my friends at Magical Trip.

I told them I'd be mentioning them, and they offered to sponsor this video.

I would have been talking about them either way, but full disclosure being what it is.

Also, this shotengai, or covered arcade, is very quiet.

Even in the big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, being able to experience things through a local guide or through the eyes of a local guide can make all the difference.

This place is literally called Taco Ball.

Magical Trip will set you up with an experienced local guide who knows what's going on.

They took me up the back mountain pass up to Fushimi Inari Shrine through this secret route last year, and it was amazing.

You get an experienced guide who knows the area, but more importantly, knows what's safe and what's not.

And it's perfect for things like their bar hopping tours or their insider hidden walks of Kyoto areas.

You get to experience things through a local without being worried about getting scammed or lost along the way.

I will link it. It's filled with all these, ooh, I should do that while I'm in Japan kind of ideas, whether you book a trip or not.

And if you do, then you always have something that you can revisit later on.

Now that I've come back and done that Kyoto hike, I have no idea how many times on my own.

That is the end of our sponsor role, as well as the Shotengai, which, by the way, these are dying out in Japan at the same rate that shopping malls are dying out in the West.

Not just in the countryside either, but in Tokyo and Osaka.

And Yo-chan's event is just around the corner up here.

It's nearly 40 degrees outside, so I have been dying lately.

Japanese locals continue to live and evolve.

Usually, they all do things in different genres, but when I talk to them about it, they all look in the same direction.

You can do anything freely, but just doing it because you like it, the balance tends to be ruined.

But people who are originally locals, and that is the traditional culture, are inherited in a good way.

Aside from taking a once-abandoned school, turning it into a hotel, cafe, and one of the most popular roasteries on the island of Shikoku, he constantly networks using local events like these to find and connect passionate individuals to one another.

We connect with each other in our respective areas, and learn from each other.

It's a great way to connect with each other.

We connect with each other in our respective areas.

実は今日の目的にある小さなセカンダリは

I came here to introduce Mr. Akihiro to YOutown today

We would like to connect Youtown with people in our statistics.

Youtownが僕らのセカンダリについて people's connections with people in the area

You see, there's this very real intertwining network of passionate individuals and growing businesses that not only patronize and promote each other but also work together to ensure that the area as a whole is more connected and enjoyable for anybody visiting or living here for anybody visiting or living here

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Rural Japan is Dying (but maybe it doesn't have to...)

entire

passionate

experience

evolve