Mari Nishihama, 20, a native of Oshima, an island located 100 km south of Tokyo, had always lived a peaceful, if somewhat uneventful, life in the small tourist resort town. But all that suddenly changed last fall, when town celebrities voted the local bank clerk Miss Oshima 2000.

Wearing the island's traditional kasuri-patterned kimono, Nishihama now makes frequent trips to the mainland, speaks before large audiences at fairs, meets politicians like Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara and is photographed at the island's famous camellia festival.

"Until I won the contest, I was rarely concerned about my island," Nishihama says. "But now it's come home to me how dependent we are on tourism. I am more than happy to help promote the industry."

But comments like hers are growing rarer. The beauty pageant is losing ground in Japan.

With a 43-year-long history, the Miss Tokyo pageant was once the country's most acknowledged regional beauty contest. Cosponsored for many years by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, smiling queens added "grace" to many a public event in the nation's capital. But this year, contest organizer Tokyo Shimbun quietly decided there would be no more Miss Tokyos.

Other beauty contests are meeting similar fates. The municipal government of Tokyo's Itabashi Ward decided to scrap the Miss Itabashi contest this year. Rumoi, Ishikari and Ebetsu, all towns in Hokkaido, have also abolished their pageants, as have the cities of Wakayama and Furukawa in Miyagi.

Oddly enough, this is occurring at a time when feminist voices are far less strident than they were 10 years ago. No rallies now blast the events as exploiting women's sexuality. We see no parades with slogans like "all women are beautiful." The uproar in the late 1980s did make some pageant organizers retreat, but the media and most event holders often just sarcastically dismissed feminists' claims as sour grapes, and men's pursuit of the feminine ideal was apparently little undermined.

What, then, is behind the current downturn?

Money, say some organizers. Cash-strapped local governments can no longer afford events like beauty pageants whose cost performance is unclear. Officials at Tokyo's Itabashi Ward said there was pressure from the local community to use the budget for small enterprises afflicted by the prolonged recession instead.

Others cite the country's economic downturn as a blow to the contests, which often rely heavily on advertising and donations from private companies.

Yet others point to the law. Holding women's beauty pageants is not in itself illegal, but with last year's revision of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law, which bans sex discrimination in recruitment and employment, it could be if the contest organizer makes a contract of employment with the beauty queen, the Ministry of Labor says.

Although it is actually easy to find legal loopholes, local governments such as the city of Ishikari's have concluded that beauty contests are against "the spirit" of the law.

But legal change and a lack of money are not the whole story. A more far-reaching and fundamental reason has surfaced: Fewer women -- and men -- are interested in the pageants.

Tokyo's Hachioji has selected beauty queens for the last 36 years. Every year more than 120 women entered the contest, but the number of applicants suddenly decreased to 70 two years ago. The tourist association of the ski resort town Yamanouchi, in Nagano Prefecture, once had over 200 entries for Miss Shiga Kogen, but officials confess that here, too, applications are on the decline.

The city of Ebetsu, Hokkaido, cited declining numbers of applicants, as well as the revision to the law and budget cuts, as the reason for scrapping the Miss Ebetsu contest.

The situation was completely different 10 years ago. Backed by the upbeat atmosphere of the nation's bullish economy, beauty contests spread to every corner of society. Private companies, universities, cities, towns and villages all jumped on the bandwagon. Some estimated 1,500 to 2,000 pageants were held in the country each year.

Queens represented everything; geographic regions like Miss Tokyo and Miss Osaka; products like the Pearl Queen, Miss Kokeshi, Miss Tsumugi and Miss Kokuto Jochu; commodities like Miss Cha-musume, Miss Sakuranbo and the Kiwi Fruit Lady; and festivals such as Miss Sakura Matsuri and Miss Natsu Matsuri. They were icons obliged to work for the pageant sponsors to promote the consumption of products or the local tourist industries.

The crowned queens were heavily covered by the media, and the public craze toward the pageantry produced the phenomenon of misukon-arashi (women obsessed with the contests), some of whom even misrepresented their age and academic career in order to qualify and better their chances of winning.

"Beauty pageants were so popular then that some women treated them as a part-time job," recalls Natsuko Nakamura, 31, who was crowned Miss Pearl Princess at the age of 20. Sponsored by the pearl retailers' association, she received a pearl necklace, a trip to the United States, a car and 1 million yen in prize money. As a representative of the pearl industry, she traveled around the country in a white dress and a 100 million yen tiara, smiling and waving from stages and floats.

"Meeting people in the business world was a good experience," Nakamura says. "Now, I get a sense of pride from the fact I was selected as a queen, and it's something that supports me."

As Nakamura and organizers say, a beauty queen title is a certification of beauty and a chance for some interesting experiences. But now, 10 years after Nakamura's crowning, beauty pageants apparently have become less rewarding.

The economic recession has discouraged private companies from donating expensive prizes such as cars, kimono and jewelry. And the typical prizes and prize money offered by organizers -- such as several hundred thousand yen and an overseas trip -- look shabby, compared to the one-year obligation of the title holder.

In short, it doesn't pay.

What's more, the event has lost its glamorous image. Beauty pageants are now often looked down on except those guaranteeing a debut in show biz, says Moeko Toyoda, a 24-year-old college graduate now seeking a job.

"Those who just want to show off their looks prefer working as a product spokes model, which provides a more rewarding experience. Instead of just standing around or waving your hands like a doll, you have to study hard in order to be able to explain the products to customers."

With far fewer beauty contest applicants, most of whom are working or studying, it is difficult for organizers to find contestants with enough spare time for dozens of events a year. Confesses one official: "We often select beauty queens primarily on the basis of whether or not they can fulfill the obligations."

Overhauls are under way in many places to attract more people, men and women, old and young. Municipalities such as the city of Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, and the town of Yoro, Gifu Prefecture, have changed their event names to Sunshine Guide Iwaki and Tourism Campaign Staff, opening the door to men.

Much less drastically, the city of Yamaguchi has changed the application requirements for its contest from unmarried women, aged 18-25 to currently single, over 18 years old. They have also decided to not ask applicants to fill in their measurements, and to let applicants wear anything they choose at the contest.

Natsuko Yoshizawa, associate professor at Japan Women's University, sees the current trend away from beauty pageants as a byproduct of society's awareness of sexual harassment.

As society began labeling unwelcome sexual behavior committed by men as sexual harassment, women's bodies being exposed to public evaluation at beauty contests started being regarded as ungraceful, even when welcomed by applicants, Yoshizawa says.

"What is done in the contest now could be construed as sexual harassment in daily life but is excused on the stage since applicants have consented to it," she said. "But now that we are more sensitive to sexual harassment issues, people have started to feel that there's something strange about continuing with beauty pageants."

It's still too early to predict how the recent trend will develop. The new Miss Nippon or kokumin-teki bishojo ("a lovely girl representing the nation"), still makes headlines. And there are men attracted by beauty pageants and queens, and women who benefit from the event.

"But even women who want publicity for their bodies appear to find beauty pageants an indecent evaluation," Yoshizawa says. "I hope it will die out in the course of time."

And this may not be that long in coming.