Tōno, Iwate

A rural basin town in central Iwate Prefecture known as the setting of Kunio Yanagita's 1910 collection of folk tales Tono Monogatari, which documented local legends of kappa river spirits, zashiki-warashi house spirits, and other supernatural beings from a vanishing rural culture. The surrounding paddy fields, thatched magariya L-shaped farmhouses, and small stone jizo statues along field paths create a landscape closely matching the book's descriptions. An open-air folk museum in the basin allows visitors to explore traditional agricultural structures.