The theme of the 2026 scarecrow contest is "Kusu", the Japanese sound of a stifled chuckle. A village just inscribed as a World Heritage Site chose laughter on purpose. The Scarecrow Festival will be held on 26 and 27 September.
Small flowers bloom along the roadsides and the ridges between rice paddies. Once you know their names, your walk looks different. Yet many of them did not exist in this village in the Asuka period.
Red runs along the edges of the rice fields, as straight as if drawn with a ruler. It did not grow there on its own. People carried the bulbs and planted them.
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.