It is rumored that a certain message is hidden on the homepage of Aibetsu Town in Hokkaido, known as the "mushroom village." It cannot be found on normal pages, and appears only on error screens... What exactly is it? And what is its purpose?

The message is on the Aibetsu Town website's "404 Error" screen.

The message is hidden on the "404 Error" screen of the Aibetsu Town homepage. Usually, the 404 error screen only says "404 Not Found" when the URL is incorrect, but here is the screen of the Aibetsu Town homepage.

"404 Error" screen on the Aibetsu Town website in Hokkaido

After apologizing for the error page, the article goes into detail about the charms of Aibetsu Town as a mushroom town. And at the end, it even includes a link to the hometown tax donation page... It's a page that normally doesn't appear, but it's incredibly well-crafted.

The message also appears on the "403 error" screen.

What's even more surprising is that there was a hidden message on the "403 error" screen that appears when anyone other than the administrator cannot view the site.

"403 Error" screen on the Aibetsu Town website in Hokkaido

It appears to be a 403 error screen with a message saying, "This page contains confidential information about the production of delicious mushrooms and cannot be made public," along with a passionate message about Kinoko no Sato and a link to hometown tax donations, just like the 404 error screen.

If you stumble upon this page by mistake, you'll feel a little excited, but also a warm sense of humor.

It all started with a highly original overseas website

Why was such an elaborate message placed on the error page of the town hall's website? We asked Masafumi Takekawa, who was in charge of the Aibetsu Town Regional Revitalization Volunteer Team at the time of the page's creation, about the intention behind it.

The humorous error page about Aibetsu Town, which you can't help but read, was created thanks to Takekawa's inspiration and love for Aibetsu.