Japanese farmers make scarecrows that scare us too

I’ll readily admit to not knowing much about agriculture. One thing I think I do have a grasp on, though, is the purpose of scarecrows. I mean, it’s all there in the name, right? They’re supposed to scare crows.

And, in fairness, these scarecrows photographed by Twitter user @jump_up_ in rural Japan probably are effective in keeping avian pests from pilfering the crops before they’re ready to be harvested. But this being Japan, where craftsmanship is a way of life, whoever made these scarecrows apparently decided to go the extra mile and design them to chill the blood of human passersby too.

Imagining coming across that while walking down a country road at night under the feeble light of a clouded-over moon. You’d take off running in the opposite direction, and once you worked up the nerve to make another attempt to pass by the farm, all you’d have to do to retrace your steps is follow the babbling brook of urine you’d laid down on the asphalt as you made your escape.

And why are three of the scarecrows just heads? Wouldn’t it be better to give them some sort of body?

But at least in the case of the creepy schoolgirl, and also the head with the surprisingly nice eyebrows, you can give the creator the benefit of the doubt. Odds are he was working with limited materials and simply wanted something that, to a crow, looks more or less like a human.

It’s a little harder to understand the rationale of the farmer who decided to make his scarecrow look like a decomposing corpse, with a detailed bone structure that gives the sparse straw covering the appearance of rotting flesh.