Last month, with two New York Times reporters present, Norimi Hajime, a villager who works for a contractor building Katoku’s berm, confronted Mr. Takaki on the village’s primary road.
Waving a small sickle — often used for yard work in Japan — Mr. Hajime accused Mr. Takaki of plotting to destroy the village.
No one wants the construction, Mr. Hajime said, but without it, a typhoon will wash Katoku away.
Storms, Mr. Takaki responded, aren’t the biggest threat to the settlement. Its elementary school closed years ago. Its youngest resident, besides Mr. Takaki and his partner, is a woman in her 50s. Bus service is now by appointment only.
The beach is Katoku’s most valuable asset, Mr. Takaki argued, the thing that differentiates it from dozens of other dying hamlets up and down Amami Oshima’s coast. In their efforts to save the settlement, he said, the villagers may kill it.
Standing on Katoku’s main road, there was no hint that the beach even existed. Mr. Hajime could see only the village.