Statues in Japan

Twelve hundred stone carvings guard this off-the-beaten-path Buddhist temple.

A park built around the legend of a clam-loving giant who created a monumental midden.

The statue's head is one of the few fragments of the original Urakami Cathedral to survive the atomic bomb.

A remarkable lava formation encloses a line of Buddhist statues that can't be accurately counted, according to local mythology.

A statue of a mischievous raccoon towers over this city park.

A shrine contains nearly 200 statues of the Buddhist deity Jizo, dressed in bibs by parents who have lost a child.

Not quite the menace it once was, this monster still has some chops.

One of the bloodiest and most important battles in Japanese history is recreated with kitschy concrete statues.

These seven moai figures are the world's only sanctioned replicas of the Easter Island originals.

A statue erected on an infamous cliff where young boys would hold dangerous "pee offs" to prove their mettle.

This little replica of Lady Liberty provides a bit of NYC in a Japanese city.

The divine septet of Japanese fortune gods are rendered in 1,000-year-old wood at this peaceful site.

Cabaret where the show girls are all androids, and the patrons couldn't be more pleased.

A sculpture that resurrected the only tree standing following the devastating 2011 tsunami.

A 59-ft. robot statue looks over the citizens of earthquake-ravaged Kobe.

After a profound show of devotion for his master, a dog becomes the symbol of loyalty for an entire nation.