Ono, Fukushima

The Banetsu-Tōsen line arrives at Ono-Shimmachi station — opened in 1915, still functioning as a turnaround point for trains from Kōriyama — and the platform feels unhurried in the way that mountain basin towns often do. The Natsuigawa runs through the center of Ono-machi, its valley cutting a narrow strip of flat land between ridges that rise steeply on all sides. It is a geography that turns a town inward, giving it a self-contained quality rather than a sense of passage.

The legend of Ono no Komachi, the classical poet, is woven into the place without overwhelming it — the dam on the Kuromorigawa is called Komachi Dam, the local ice burger carries the name in its packaging. At Manpukuji temple, founded in the early ninth century, votive paintings by the Edo-period artist Aōdō Denzen are kept; the combination of deep provincial quiet and that kind of careful preservation is characteristic. At Suwa Shrine, two enormous cryptomeria trees — the Okina-sugi and Ona-sugi, their roots set over a millennium ago, designated a national natural monument — stand in a stillness that has nothing to do with tourism.

Up on Takashiba-yama, wild azaleas cover the slope in late spring, and the summit of Yajin-yama offers an open view across the Abukuma range. Below, blueberries grow in the highland air, and the Rika-chan Castle factory operates as an open facility where the manufacturing of the well-known doll line can be observed directly — an oddly grounding thing to encounter amid so much forested ridge and river sound.