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Every year, about 90,000 people are reported missing in Japan. Most of them have been found or returned home, but thousands are still missing. They don’t seem to want to be seen. There is even a Japanese word for the phenomenon: “johatsu”, or evaporation. Many made elaborate plans for their disappearance and cut all ties with their families to build new lives elsewhere. But why did they do it? And where do they end up? Our reporters spoke to investigators, experts and left-behind families to try to shed light on the “evaporating” people in Japan.
