Nihonmatsu, Fukushima

Rice field should always be this beautiful in autumn time.

Naraha, Fukushima

Namie, Fukushima

Iitate, Fukushima

People just cannot come back here. They want to. They really hope to. And the government says they will be OK. But they are such vulnerable human being just as all others are. Some would say a bit of radiation is nothing. But just a little bit of it does frighten every family with children. And without any children, a village cannot be back there  as your home land.

Katsurao, Fukushima

Weeds are beautiful in certain way. They look so tough and bold that we almost believe they know everything about our crisis. Now humans are afraid of radio active contamination and not coming back very soon. So this is a good chance to take over the territory of those cultivated species.

Iitate, Fukushima

Who could see any radio active danger with his eyes here? The only reality we can see is this dead farm and the empty road.

Katsurao, Fukushima

Do you see any danger here? Can you see any formidable risk that you might die without knowing what is going on? Is it possible to detect any crisis here at all that no human being might not ever come back here to restore the old beautiful rural landscape? The point is not that we might die. All of us are going to die someday any way. The horror is that we can not see what is really happening. The deserted rice field and unused road are telling us that no one can resist against the radio active land at all.

Taro, Iwate

Yuriage, Sendai Miyagi

Minamisohma, Fukushima

Shizugawa, Iwate

Rikuzentakata, Iwate

Yamada, Iwate

A zebra crossing usually means that there is a lot of traffic here and people have to be careful. Pedestrians are told to cross the road on a particular spot designed only for crossing. They are forced to help the convenience of cars and lorries. How nice to live in a world with a lot of active people and busy vehicles!

Sohma, Fukushima

Sendai, Miyagi

Sendai, Miyagi

Sendai, Miyagi

a guardrail carried away by tsunami onto this rice field
Sendai, MIyagi

Guardrail is a metonymy of road. Just like flower is nature and PC is information, guardrails usually tell us that there you can expect the transportation system named 'road'. So this white thing torn away onto the mud here looks like a miserable iron rail, but in fact it means that our whole idea of safety system was torn away on to the mud.

Nihonmatsu, Fukushima

Flowers require no words. It is only we that always look for some answer. We have had such a horrible disaster and have lost the most precious we can ever lose. Everyone is looking for some words which can tell us why we had to have this and how we could go on. 

R398 elevated track and rubble
Ogatsu, Miyagi

Kesen'numa, Miyagi

a submerged street
Kesen'numa, MIyagi

We were horrified not only because we saw twenty thousad deaths but also we were astonished. We had to find our home was based on such a vulnerable and fragile land. It was shaken and drowned, then burned and totally covered by rubble.  So we had to understand that our whole life was helplessly dependent on the precious heritage from the past. A brick wall looks invincible but it just looks so. It was put there by hands and can be collapsed in a second.

submerged road and rice field
Kitakami, Ishinomaki, Miyagi

You see, it is just the sea water. Nothing more than ordinary salty water after the quake. It has ruined everything. What a fragile thing we believed and were dependent on. 

the fire station
Rikuzen-Takata, Iwate

submerged streets
Ohtsuchi, Iwate

One might say this is a beautiful scene. Yes, it surely is, unless you did not have the least chance to help your wife and kids during the immense tidal wave attack or have lost your home and job at the same time right after the quake or killed tens or hundreds of good people under your responsibility. Or maybe the sky and the sea and mountains are always beautiful just because they are far beyond our control. Yes, we had to learn. We were so small, too small, desperately small.