Having a good time, though not at high revs, is more the Towa style.
Social scientists seeking an answer in Towa discover a community where even the very elderly lead vibrant, active lives.
For sure, Towa is a little shoddy looking and in many ways is far from being paradise on earth.
He and his wife, also 80, manage their lives in Towa perfectly well.
Towa Real Estate, a developer affiliated with the big Fujita construction firm, has asked Tokai Bank to do much the same.
Towa's principal failing is that it has only one public nursing home.
Lately, though, Towa has been attracting a different kind of visitor.
But in the summer and especially during the Buddhist Obon festival in August, Towa's island of Suoh-Oshima is overrun with visitors, many of them returning locals.
One estimate indicates that the number of people living on the entire Suoh-Ohshima island - including Towa and three similar communities - will halve by 2020.
Towa may need a lick of paint, but like rural communities all over Japan, it shows evidence of lavish government spending on projects designed to stimulate the economy.
But while officials wring their hands over what may lie in store for Towa and the rest of Japan, some of the town's people wonder what all the fuss is about.
One of her sons recently returned to Towa to work in a new resort hotel, one of the few jobs other than fishing, tending orange orchards and taking care of the old.
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