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This is the ninth volume in Japanese photographer Kazuyuki Kawaguchi’s ongoing Prospects series, which documents and explores the state of deteriorating towns and cities across Japan.

For volume nine, Kawaguchi traveled through most of Japan’s main island of Honshu, as well as Hokkaido in the north. In the Prospects series, Kawaguchi is interested in places of unfulfilled promise, past prosperity, and former vitality. Through documentary photographs of streets, alleys and buildings, he traces the historical and contemporary transformations of towns and cities that once flourished during Japan’s Edo, Meiji, Taisho, and Showa eras. Despite his focus on decline, Kawaguchi’s photographs capture a subtle and distinctly Japanese wabi-sabi beauty.