A village that did not abandon its forest is calling the young. Nishiawakura in Okayama is a small mountain village of about fifteen hundred people, more than ninety percent of it forest. During the great municipal mergers, this village chose not to merge: to stay small, and live by its own hands. And it bet on the forest, with a "hundred-year forest" plan, the whole village tending neglected plantations and raising them back into something of value. To that challenge, young people began to gather, starting businesses with timber, new ventures, outsiders founding companies in the village. A local-venture system supports this, from trial relocation to full entrepreneurship, letting people engage step by step. In an age when leaving for the big city was the norm, there are those who head instead for a small village. In the forest, there is a future. A village of people who believe it.