Shuttered Streets: “Japan is Turning into a Ghost Town”

Watch the 2009 documentary 'The Secret of Oz' and understand the root cause of many of the worlds problems lies in banking elites controlling the quantity of money in the global economy - rather than nation states. If you are ever going to accept a conspiracy theory - this is the most likely and realistic conspiracy I know of.

If you decide to ever watch a documentary this is it.

Maybe just because it's Golden Week and some people took pictures of closed stores?

Let's not forget that these teens who don't go out (forgot what they are called) can also play as one of the missing factors here since they've becoming too common in Japan. And i also bet that it's not common in Japanese teen to go out and roam around in their country - bet most of the teens and otakus who have seen this won't even recognize 1/4 of the places shown here.

to all the idiots claiming this is just shots of vacation or early hrs keep
shutting your eyes to reality, hopefully you will fall in a pit and stop burdening the world.
This happening in a lot of countries not just Japan and is no laughing matter as it is followed by desperation and crime.
so keep laughing idiots but pray that when you need a job they don't tell you
you aren't needed.

Who cares? Shit happens everywhere why is Japan so special other than Wapanese and Weebos feeling sympathy on this site (hardly anyone if anyone at all is Japanese)

Did anyone recognise picture 015 from various anime? I'm sure I saw it in Nyan Koi.

Depressing, no really.

BlackEpsilon says:

This is an amateur zombie film waiting to happen.

another reason to nuke japan, the place is worthless and filled with useless japs

that's so depressing D:

Every shotengai looks like this at 9am sunday morning.

What we should be discussing is how we can make this work for us.

Globalization was here. Small business are dying, time to monopolize and raise prices on the unemployed masses. They'll steal from each other to buy our over hyped, poorly built merchandise. We get blood money, they get slavery and prison.

It looks like a resident evil level >.< scary

This will completely dissapear once LovePlus+ is released, with the love-enthralled players taking their girls out on dates everywhere.

Damn those schizophrenic Japanese that aren't spending.

Seriously though, should we be sad about this? The 50's are nice for a couple of hours when you watch Always San Chome No Yuhi, but you probably wouldn't want to live there. Neither should you worry about shotengais disappearing because they just aren't needed anymore.

Maybe it's because everyone's away on golden week.

Its sad to see this I've actually been to some of these places back in 2006 amazing to see how 4 years changes places

I wonder how many of those were just taken on a Sunday afternoon or some other time when the stores are just closed. Some are clearly derelicts but others look too well maintained.

Most of these shots appear to be just taken during early hours when nothing is open yet.

Some of these remind me of dead malls in the US while others remind me of run down down town areas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mall

Looks like Japan needs to invest in an urban renewal program and redevelop some of these places.

Maybe rebuild them to be more car and bus friendly as some seem very claustrophobic and only reachable by foot.

Maybe offer tax incentives for businesses to move back into the regions as well.

haha
Its hella easy to get shots like this around Golden Week.
Check out Masataka Nakano project Tokyo Empty for more.

All they really have to worry about is the demons popping up but at lease they'll have Ginza to listen too while walking through...

Haruhi provided the answer but no one follows her example.

These shopping streets need attractive big titted schoolgirls in bunny suits to attract customers.

Duckface was here....

OMG FRAGILE DREAMS IS COMMING TO LIFE!!

OMFG: ZEGAPAIN - WHOLE JAPAN SERVER

Its eroge palying week.

Homeless people sure got it easy in Japan...

lul they should have put a random pic of juon in the corridors that would be pwnd~

Those places remind me of Silent Hill

It is no surprise to myself. I was deployed to Yokosuka back in 2002 and saw such shuttered sites then in that city and then in Tokyo in 2003. So as far back at that, this has been happening. I guess that this has accelerated since then though.

this is kinda scary. this reminds me of a scene in the manga uzumaki...

Re populate Japan through clones... and other "methods" *wink wink*

a lot of those locations look dumpy, they could really benefit from renovation.

The just look like the streets in my city on a Sunday...

one thing that comes to mind... Jet set radio future, xbox game

They probably took it on early mornings. The old people are quite feisty, ya know.

Bummer. :l

Yeah, it sure looks depressing, but it doesn't mean the people who once did business there just vanished. There are lots of newly build big department buildings, mostly near the train stations; it's where most of the merchants have moved.

So, sure, the small stores aren't outside anymore, but the merchants do exist. It's like in Akihabara, where most of the small (and often boroi) restaurants near the station have had to make space for giant buildings like Yodobashi Akiba and the high buildings on the opposite side. Once you get inside, you can notice small restaurant en masse.

It's not the same feeling eating there, but at least the chance to choose between really many kinds of food is still there.

Times and preferences change. It's a fact of life. These may have served their communities well decades ago, but now people want a greater selection of more or less the same stuff at lower prices. Consolidation in retail and improved distribution channels have made this possible. Newer big-box outfits (even in Japan) have less character, but they seem to be serving their generic function well. That's a choice customers made, right or wrong, and it works given existing physical & social infrastructure.

Maybe care facilities for the elderly next to these stores may bring in more traffic, for instance. Alternatively, these communities should consider what stores are sustainable, and how to better transition the people and space so urban blight is minimized. Abandoned 'dead malls' mentioned by a poster above often haunt neighborhoods for longer than they should in the US.

no wonder. becaouse jap gov has gathered japs in tokyo.

gov "main TV stations and publishers must be in tokyo!!!"

japs "yes sir!!!"

gov "and companies too!!!!1!"

japs "sir, yes sir!!!!!11!!!!!11123"

hicks "...mmm, there is no animes, no mangas, and no works... but i love my country... but..."

tokyo japs "hehehe, only pumpkins live in a country"

miku otakus "why doesn't crypton come to tokyo?"

tokyo japs "yeah! crypton must come to tokyo!"

this is what is goin on in japan.

man this is really depressing, its the same thing that happend to america when wal-mart popped up. its disappointing because i have never been to japan yet and it will not be the same as the last decade. i even wish i could see America in its different booms like drive in theaters n such. WE might think they will bounce back but small buisness strips in america never do -_-

Unless this is all a clever ruse to get people there to spend more money...I could capture the same scene anywhere if I took photos at 5AM.

But, I guess it's believable. Right down the street from me, a multi-million dollar movie theatre was torn down because it was built in an area where business died all around it.

In the suburban sprawls in the US, we commonly have the problem of areas getting to the point where poor people inhabit the housing around businesses. This drags the safety and overall classiness of the businesses down, so they take their businesses elsewhere and leave dead shopping centers in their wake.