The Iya Valley is a mountainous region located in the heart of Shikoku Island, in the most remote part of southern Japan. Although the region has been inhabited since the 12th century, after World War II, it began to slowly depopulate as people moved to the larger cities of the country, such as Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo. The region is also known as one of the most haunted areas in all of Japan, and this is said to be one of the reasons people leave. It is believed that around the Yoshino River, which flows throughout the valley, the yokai (妖怪, the Japanese term for ghosts) enjoy tricking passersby into entering the river and pulling them in to drown. Because of the large number of yokai said to inhabit the area, one of the villages along the river is called Oboke (大歩危), which in Japanese means "extreme danger." The yokai living in the Iya Valley seem to outnumber the people, as today, in the twenty or so villages of the region, only around one thousand residents remain, almost all of them over sixty years old. The schools were the first buildings to be abandoned. After the schools, it was the sawmills, shops, then the houses, and so on. One of these residents, Ayano Tsukimi, decided to repopulate her village with scarecrows crafted to resemble deceased or emigrated people. She created 400 of these scarecrows: they scream to the world that the Iya Valley does not want to die.