Kihoku, Ehime

Near the upper reaches of the Shimanto watershed, the Hiromigawa river cuts through a basin where forest covers nearly every slope visible from the road. The three stations on the Yodo Line — Chikazuka among them — are modest stops, and the town that gathers around them is Kihoku, a place where rice paddies sit in the valley floor and shiitake and yuzu move through the local economy with quiet regularity.

At the roadside station Nichi-Yume Sanchoku, a statue of Yukihime stands near the entrance, and inside, local vegetables share shelf space with bread from the on-site workshop. Down National Route 320, the Hiromimori-no-Sankakuboshi station displays the Kioumaru figure outside — a reminder that this territory carries its own mythology, rooted partly in the Buzaemon Uprising of the late Edo period, when farmers pushed back against authority hard enough to leave a name on the annual summer festival.

Izumikagami paper, a craft tradition also from the Edo period, still belongs to this place in name if not in daily production. The Narukawakyō valley offers white granite riverbed and clear water, a landscape that earns its place among the recognized views of Shikoku without needing embellishment. Tōmyōji's old temple precinct, a nationally designated historic site, sits quietly without crowds. What accumulates here — craft, uprising memory, river, forest — is not arranged for viewing. It simply persists.