This town has a fire festival in which, each late autumn, several hundred great torches blaze up. It is said to have begun, scorching the night sky, to console the spirits of a fallen castle’s lord and his retainers in the age of the warring states. The same town holds the only peony garden in the country designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty. And this town is also the home of the master of special effects who created the round imagined monsters. Laid over the culture that a foremost post town of the highway raised, the town of the fire festival, the peony and the imagined monster widened its municipal area through merger. Sukagawa-shi’s numbers are the record of a town inscribed with the history a post town raised.
A city in the central part of Fukushima Prefecture, opening onto a basin cradled by the Abukuma river and mountains. To read the population, the merger must be taken into account. In 2005 Sukagawa-shi incorporated a neighboring town and village and widened its municipal area. The old city’s population in 2000, before the incorporation, was 66,747, and 80,364 in 2005 after it. From there it has moved to 74,992 in 2020. What I (Atlas) want to read here is not the sign “the town of Ultraman,” but the causal thread: how the culture that a foremost post town of the highway raised, and the history of the fire festival, the peony and the imagined monster, are translated into today’s population and finances.
01 · See the Sukagawa-shi of today in its numbers
In the latest Population Census the population is about seventy-five thousand (74,992 in 2020). To read this city’s population, the merger must be taken into account. In 2005 Sukagawa-shi incorporated a neighboring town and village and widened its municipal area. The old city’s population in 2000, before the incorporation, was 66,747, and 80,364 in 2005 after it. From there, through 79,267 in 2010 and 77,441 in 2015 to 74,992 in 2020, it has fallen gently since the incorporation. The step in population between 2000 and 2005 in this article mirrors the widening of the municipal area through this incorporation.
Looking inside the figures, the figure of a mid-sized city opening onto a basin appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 17.4% (2000) to 28.3% (2020), but where many regional cities draw near four in ten, it does not reach three in ten and keeps a comparative youth. The household-with-children share, at 25.0% (2020), is high, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.56 in fiscal 2023 — a level whose own tax revenue covers a little over half of expenditure, in the middle range for a mid-sized city. This town that holds the fire festival, the peony and the imagined monster nearly holds its population within the post-incorporation municipal area and is still comparatively young. Why that is so cannot be guessed without returning to the history of the culture the post town raised.
Source: Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Local Government Finance Survey, Fiscal Capacity Index (MIC) / Childcare Facility Status Report (Children and Families Agency) / Real Estate Information Library (MLIT)
02 · A foremost post town of the highway, a fire festival consoling a castle, the only nationally designated peony in the country, the man who created the imagined monster — the history behind the numbers
This town’s skeleton is set by the townsmen’s culture that a foremost post town of the highway raised, the fire festival and the peony laid over it, and the man who created the imagined monster. The central layer is the post town. In the Edo era, this town flourished as a foremost post town of the highway running through Oshu. People and goods came and went, the culture of townsmen blossomed, and haikai too thrived. That a haiku poet who journeyed north stayed in this post town for several days also speaks to the thickness of that culture. The people and culture the highway carried made the central layer of this town.
Upon this post town’s culture, several histories were laid. One is the fire festival. There was a castle here in the age of the warring states, but it was attacked by a certain warlord and fell. To console the spirits of the castle’s lord and his retainers who perished in that battle of the fall, a fire festival burning several hundred great torches is said to have begun, and scorching the night sky it still lights the late-autumn town. Another is the peony. This town holds the only peony garden in the country designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty, and in season many flowers vie in bloom. And this town is also the home of the master of special effects who created the round imagined monsters, and the town has woven that world of the imagination into its living. The path by which it became a city mirrors this town too. This land became a city in the 1950s by joining with nearby villages, and in 2005 it incorporated a neighboring town and village and widened its municipal area. Upon the stratum of culture that a foremost post town of the highway raised, the fire festival, the peony and the imagined monster accumulated. A post town opening onto the Abukuma basin kept drawing in people and culture — that is this town’s starting point.
Source: Sukagawa City, “History and Origins of the City” (an Edo-era leading post town of the Oshu Kaido; the Taimatsu-akashi fire festival originating in the Nikaido clan’s defensive siege; the Sukagawa Peony Garden, a nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty; city status in 1954 / the 2005 incorporation of Naganuma town and Iwase village — overview) / Sukagawa City (the birthplace of the special-effects director Eiji Tsuburaya; town-building drawing on Ultraman — overview)
03 · In a town the post town raised, it nearly holds its population after incorporation and keeps its youth
What characterizes Sukagawa-shi is that, while holding the culture a foremost post town of the highway raised, it nearly holds the population of its post-incorporation municipal area and keeps a comparative youth. From 80,364 in 2005, after the incorporation, to 74,992 in 2020, it lost about five thousand over fifteen years, yet it still holds about seventy-five thousand. Opening onto a basin in the central part of the prefecture and close to the prefectural capital, this land — with the central urban area the post town raised, plus a living of commuting to nearby cities — can be read as having held young households to a degree, which has sustained the population without a large collapse. That the share aged 65 and over, at 28.3% in 2020, does not reach three in ten, and that the household-with-children share, at 25.0%, is on the higher side, are expressions of this too.
On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.56 is a level whose own tax revenue covers a little over half of expenditure, in the middle range for a mid-sized city. The central urban area the post town raised, and the income of those who live here while working nearby, can be read as sustaining the tax source in the middle range. The town of the fire festival, the peony and the imagined monster now keeps a comparative youth while nearly holding its population within the post-incorporation municipal area. A slight post-incorporation decline, aging not reaching three in ten, middle-range finances — this figure of a mid-sized city opening onto a basin and keeping a comparative youth is not something to be spoken of by pulling out any single number. Only where the three are laid over one another does the image finally form.
Source: Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Local Government Finance Survey, Fiscal Capacity Index (MIC) / Childcare Facility Status Report (Children and Families Agency)
04 · How the fire festival, the peony and the monster came to overlap on the culture the post town raised
In Sukagawa several faces of differing origin fold over one another. One is the old stratum of a town that flourished as a foremost post town of the highway running through Oshu and raised the culture and haikai of townsmen. Another is the history laid over the post town’s culture: the fire festival consoling the castle’s lord and retainers who perished in the warring-states battle of the fall, the only peony garden in the country designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty, and the home of the master of special effects who created the round imagined monster. And the landform of a basin cradled by the Abukuma river and mountains called the highway, called the post town, and gathered culture into this land.
From the townsmen’s culture a highway post town raised, to a fire festival consoling a castle, the only nationally designated peony in the country, and the imagined monster — cultures of wholly different character coexist in a single town. Pressed to the root, the single fact that the highway running through Oshu placed a post town in the Abukuma basin drew in people and culture and made this town of manifold expressions.
Source: Sukagawa City, “History and Origins of the City” (an Edo-era leading post town of the Oshu Kaido; the Taimatsu-akashi fire festival originating in the Nikaido clan’s defensive siege; the Sukagawa Peony Garden, a nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty; city status in 1954 / the 2005 incorporation of Naganuma town and Iwase village — overview) / Sukagawa City (the birthplace of the special-effects director Eiji Tsuburaya; town-building drawing on Ultraman — overview)
05 · Atlas note — the consoling of a tragedy, the seasonal flower and the monster, all raised from the post town’s soil
Lay out Sukagawa’s numbers and the indicators of a mid-sized city opening onto a basin that keeps a comparative youth line up: a slight post-incorporation population decline, an aging rate of 28.3%, a household-with-children share of 25.0%, fiscal capacity of 0.56. But to read the numbers in time series, what I (Atlas) want to note first is that this city’s step in population owes to the 2005 incorporation. The old city’s population in 2000, before the incorporation, was 66,747, and the 80,364 of 2005 is the result of incorporating a neighboring town and village. Read the population in time series and overlook this step between 2000 and 2005, and one misreads the town’s figure. That is why it must be read after noting the value of the old city on its own.
On that basis, what I want to read is that this town lays several histories upon the thickness of culture that “a foremost post town of the highway” raised. The fire festival consoling those who perished in the battle of the fall keeps conveying the warring-states tragedy to the late-autumn night sky. The only peony garden in the country designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty colors the town in the season of flowers. And that it is the home of the master of special effects who created the round imagined monster gives the town a singular expression, weaving a world of the imagination into it. The overlap of cultures of wholly different character — the consoling of a warring-states tragedy, a seasonal flower, and an imagined monster — coexisting in a single town belongs to this town alone. All of them, too, can be read as having grown from the same soil: the thickness of the townsmen’s culture that a foremost post town of the highway raised. As the town nearly holds its population within its post-incorporation municipal area, how it hands this manifold culture on to the living of the next generation and to those who visit is a question proper to a town of the Abukuma basin. The consoling of a warring-states tragedy, a seasonal flower, and an imagined monster — these three cultures of wholly different character all branched and grew from the same soil, the townsmen’s culture a foremost post town of the highway raised. Beneath the comparatively young number of a household-with-children share of 25.0%, the four-hundred-year embers of the coming and going of people the post town drew in still run.
Source: Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Sukagawa City, “History and Origins of the City” (an Edo-era leading post town of the Oshu Kaido; the Taimatsu-akashi fire festival originating in the Nikaido clan’s defensive siege; the Sukagawa Peony Garden, a nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty; city status in 1954 / the 2005 incorporation of Naganuma town and Iwase village — overview) / Sukagawa City (the birthplace of the special-effects director Eiji Tsuburaya; town-building drawing on Ultraman — overview)
Editor’s note: all figures and sources are drawn from official statistics. The prose follows Atlas’s voice, and AI (atlas-handcrafted-reverse-v1 (Daiki 2026-06-02)) handled the shaping of the text. Evaluative or predictive language (such as “a good buy” or “attractive”) is intentionally left out. Revision id: wave17_3