A city suffering from population decline has attracted nationwide attention through its promotion video, which has had over a million views on YouTube.
The city of Kobayashi in Miyazaki Prefecture created a promotion video — "N'da-mo-shita'n Kobayashi," which means "What a surprise" in English — to join a contest hosted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications as part of the government's regional revitalization policy aimed at encouraging people to move to the countryside.
The video's unique twist — using a Frenchman speaking in the local Nishimoro dialect, which, some say, sounds similar to French — captured the attention of many on social media.