[Analemma_]

I mean if you're in Tokyo you won't really notice - the effect of Japan's demographic shift has been that everyone moves to the largest cities and the countryside gets emptied out, which is why afaik Tokyo's population is still increasing even as Japan as a whole has shrunk in the last few years.

To notice the effects you have to go out into smaller prefectures and notice things like elementary schools closing and towns merging because they no longer have enough people to support public services for both individually.

[tkgally]

> everyone moves to the largest cities

Anecdotal evidence in support of that:

I have lived for the past twenty-five years in Japan’s second-largest city, Yokohama, in an area convenient for shopping and mass transit. While the neighborhood immediately around my home hasn’t changed much during that time and is still a mix of single-family houses and two- and three-story apartment buildings, along the main streets and waterfront there has been steady construction of high-rise condominiums. The local public elementary school, which my two daughters attended and which my grandson will enter in 2026, is facing a critical shortage of classroom space as families with children move into the area [1]. Parts of Tokyo are facing a similar crisis [2].

I haven’t traveled much outside the major cities since before the pandemic, but the steady depopulation in many areas is said to be equally apparent.

[1] https://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/kosodate-kyoiku/kyoiku/sesak...

[2] https://digital.asahi.com/articles/ASRDW7QGQRDNOXIE03K.html

[rendaw]

Tokyo area population falls for first time (2022): https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14691787

> Ministry officials said deaths outnumbered births in the area by a wider margin than in previous years, fewer people entered the country from abroad amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and more people moved from the capital to other prefectures.

[Schiendelman]

That has probably already reversed, people have come back again post covid.

[aitchnyu]

Its depicted in Wolf Children animated movie, where newly widowed mum sees a "we pay you to live in this village house" as best for her limited savings and she teams up with 5 fellow mums to commute her kids to school to a town with one.