In 2720, centuries of population decline in Japan will yield the result of a seemingly ineluctable calculus: the final Japanese child will be born. That is the prediction of Hiroshi Yoshida, a professor at Tohoku University, who warns that his country is going extinct. Japan is at the forefront of depopulation, a phenomenon affecting developed countries around the world, with profound economic and social consequences.

The latest statistics paint a dismal picture. In 2024, Japan’s population, in decline since 2009, contracted by a record 908,574. Only 686,061 babies were born, while nearly 1.6 million people died. With a low fertility rate and high longevity, the population is also greying rapidly. 

Into this abyss wades Tom Feiling, author of Short Walks from Bogotá, who spent time working as an English teacher in Japan in the early 1990s. Looking over old photos, Feiling is overcome by nostalgia and a longing to return. It was the height of the bubble economy, when governments,