From the most aged village in Japan. Nanmoku in Gunma is said to have one of the highest proportions of elderly residents in the country; more than half its people are over sixty-five. Those who live here know that, left as it is, the village may vanish. And so the village welcomes those who come from outside, lending out empty houses, answering relocation questions with care, offering trial stays. In its steep mountain folds lie only slivers of flat land; once it thrived on silkworm farming and forestry, and now only the quiet trace of that remains. Yet some find richness within the inconvenience: the stars are beautiful, the water is good, the people are warm. It is easy to call it a vanishing village. But there are, certainly, people beginning their lives here. Not an ending, but a beginning. A village for those who think so.