October, 1975.
In accordance with the Prime Minister's bulletin number XXX, Hinamizawa's electrical development master plan was announced.
The vast scope of the projected Hinamizawa dam was to have an incredibly heavy impact on the village of Hinamizawa.
The area to be flooded by the Hinamizawa dam would include the five areas of Hinamizawa, Takatsudo, Kiyotsu, Matsumoto, and Yagochi.
The submerged area would include 291 houses.
Population: 1,251,
1 elementary school,
1 middle school,
1 post office,
1 agricultural cooperative,
1 forestry department lumber yard,
5 shrines,
2 temples,
and 1 fishery.
All of these communal, cultural, agricultural areas, and places of worship were to be indefinitely submerged at the bottom of the artificial lake basin.
Forsaking the hundreds of years our ancestors poured their blood and sweat into this fertile, resource-rich land was just too painful to bear.
All the residents having homes that were to be submerged banded together, and created the Onigafuchi Guardians.
The dam project was halted and petitions to alter the plan were circulated.
The citizens sought peaceful negotiations, but the government and its puppet company XXXXX openly refused.
Performing unspeakable, heinous acts, they quashed the democratic actions of the villagers.
But the villagers did not falter. Instead, they banded together even more closely and steeled their resolve to protect their homes to the death.
The continuation of that frightening Hinamizawa dam construction project is still stalled as of today.
The villagers understand that the stalling was caused by sublime power through unity
and they understand that this fearsome plan has not yet been fully withdrawn.
The Onigafuchi Guardians had been dissolved after it did its part, but the feelings of unity it garnered have not yet been extinguished.
As long as that passion resides in the hearts of the residents, they'll be able to confront whomever next decides to sink their homes into a lake basin.
Onigafuchi Guardians Committee Chairman,
Kiichirou Kimiyoshi