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Jumbo Scarecrows: That Year in Japan, Standing in the Rice Terraces

Published September 12, 2026

Every autumn, a scarecrow so big you have to look up at it appears in the Inabuchi terraced rice fields. Its subject is chosen from that year's news, and the same one never stands twice.

• Village life
• Flowers & seasons

In September, Inabuchi is known for its red spider lilies. But walk the paths through the terraced rice fields and there is something else that catches your eye.

Standing in the fields is a scarecrow several times taller than a person.

2026 (latest): Prime Minister Takaichi

The 2026 jumbo scarecrow is Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae.

Black hair and a pearl necklace. Her features are captured so well that you can tell who it is even from a distance.

She is from Nara Prefecture and in 2025 became Japan's first woman prime minister. In the year a prime minister came from the local area, she stands in the rice terraces. As choices of subject go, it could hardly be more straightforward.

Incidentally, this village is also where Japan's first reigning empress took the throne: in 592, Empress Suiko acceded at the Toyura Palace. Across more than 1,400 years, a scarecrow of the first woman prime minister stands in the land of the first empress.

2025: Myaku-Myaku

In 2025 it was Myaku-Myaku, the character of Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai.

A blue body with a ring of red cell-like shapes: that distinctive form was built in three dimensions right in the middle of the terraces.

Going further back, in 2022 it was the baseball player Ohtani Shohei. The chest of his red uniform reads ASUKA.

The subject is decided by what was the talk of Japan that year. Lined up together, they read like a timeline.

Not only happy news

On New Year's Day 2024, the Noto Peninsula Earthquake struck.

That year, the scarecrow in the terraces was modelled on Gojinjō Daiko, a folk performing art handed down in Nafune, Wajima City, in which drummers wearing demon masks beat drums with their hair flying wildly. It is the performing art of the very area in Noto that was hit by the disaster.

"Gojinjō Daiko" is written on the body of the drum. The mask and the hanging hair are reproduced just as they are.

Reflecting what happened in a given year does not mean choosing cheerful topics. Some years, it means showing what happened in a faraway place by putting it up in the rice terraces.

Rebuilt every year

The jumbo scarecrows are not reused. Each one is made from scratch every year.

The frame is assembled, the face made and the fabric stretched over it. It has to stand for several months exposed to wind and rain. This laborious work is done all over again every year.

So last year's scarecrow no longer exists. It survives only in photographs. The same one never stands twice: that is the nature of this event.

Scarecrow Road

There is only one jumbo scarecrow, but along the paths through the terraces stand rows of scarecrows submitted by the public. This is known as Scarecrow Road.

It is a contest: the winning entries are decided by visitors' votes at the Inabuchi Terraced Rice Field Scarecrow Festival held in late September. The display generally runs from early September to early November.

A theme is also set each year. In 2023 it was "Flowers and Insects: Scarecrows Full of Nature." That is why the jumbo scarecrow was holding an insect net and cage.

The contest began in 1996, so 2026 is the 31st. It is organised by the NPO Association for Creating Asuka's Future, with support from the Asuka Village Regional Development Corporation.

Scarecrows were originally farm tools

Just to note: scarecrows were originally tools for driving away birds and animals.

One theory says the Japanese word kakashi comes from kagashi, "something to make smell." Animal hair or fish heads were burnt and stuck on skewers so that the smell would keep creatures away, and over time this took the form of a figure.

A scarecrow so big you have to look up at it has long since left practical use behind. Still, it remains something that stands only because there are fields and the rice is ripening.

That said, a wild boar is standing cheekily at the feet of the scarecrow in the photo. The very creature it should be chasing off is standing right beside it, and that, too, says something about the character of this event.

It is a little like the red spider lilies, which were planted to protect the field ridges. Because there is farm work, the event can ride on top of it.

Same season, same place

The scarecrow display overlaps with the peak of the red spider lilies. Late September is exactly that time.

Red spider lilies draw lines along the ridges, golden rice ripens, and scarecrows stand among them. This is the season when Inabuchi is at its liveliest.

Conversely, outside this season Inabuchi is quiet. The scarecrows are cleared away, the rice is cut, and in winter only scattered nio, stacks of rice straw, remain.

Jumbo scarecrows so far

This page covers up to 2026. As far as is known, they are as follows.

2026: Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae

2025: Myaku-Myaku (Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai)

2024: Gojinjō Daiko (Noto Peninsula Earthquake)

2023: Shofukutei Tsurube (theme: "Flowers and Insects: Scarecrows Full of Nature")

2022: Ohtani Shohei

Next year something different will stand there again. What it will be, no one can know until that year has passed.

If you go

Take the Asuka loop bus from Kintetsu Kashiharajingu-mae Station to the "Inabuchi" stop. Coming down from Asakaze Pass, which overlooks the terraces, you will meet one scarecrow after another.

The display period and festival dates vary from year to year. Check with the village tourist information.

The scarecrows stand on farmland. Please don't walk onto the ridges; view them from the road. Before the harvest, going into the fields really does cause trouble.

In the red spider lily season there are more people and more cars. The roads are narrow, so be careful where you park.