Slow Life Japan is a sort of movement, or rather an antimovement, that sprouted here and there in the 1990s, little islands of quietude amid the ultra-fast life that had come to seem as unquestionable as modernity itself. Production, consumption, growth, activity, exhaustion — all very well, but what for, after all, what for?

The first to balk officially was Iwate Prefecture. In 2001, it issued a "Gambaranai Sengen" ("Take-it-easy Declaration"; gambaranai being the negative form of the ubiquitous exhortation gambare — go all out, give it all you've got).

"Let's make our life in the new century more human, more natural, and more simple," the declaration urged. Conservation, harmony with nature, the nurturing of local culture, an emphasis on fulfillment over competition and quality over quantity: such were the watchwords.