Sole child is village's joy

Japan’s low birth rate quiet emergency’ prime minister.

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Riding his tricycle with cheerful abandon, Kuranosuke Kato is the only child in his tiny, depopulated Japanese village overrun by life-sized puppets.

The two-year-old was the first baby in two decades for Ichinono, one of more than 20,000 communities in Japan where the majority of residents are aged 65 and above, according to the internal affairs ministry data.

Revitalising rural areas is one of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's key campaign pledges as he fights to retain a majority in a general election tomorrow.

Ishiba has called Japan's low birth rate a "quiet emergency".

It is starkly evident in places like Ichinono, a bucolic hamlet home to fewer than 60 people.