Completed in 1917 by a small regional hydroelectric company, the Anegawa Power Plant belongs to Japan’s first rush toward electrification. Its brick machine hall produced a modest 615 kilowatts and supplied the surrounding countryside for over two decades. Around 1940, a larger and more modern plant came online on the same water source, and the old station became redundant. It limped along on surplus water until it was finally decommissioned in 1944.

The forest has long since taken over. What remains is a century-old brick shell beneath the cedars, with arched openings like a tiny roofless cathedral. The machinery is gone, and ferns now carpet the ground where the turbines used to spin. There was talk of preserving it as a cultural property, but the cost buried the idea, and the bricks were left to the moss instead. I photographed it in the spring of 2024.