He's a short, bald guy who is built like a salt shaker. His statues are rarely more than a meter tall. His main responsibility, though, is dead children, since their journey to the other side is likely to be particularly harrowing, and they need all the help they can get. The parents of dead children often buy a small statue of Jizo to place at the local temple to ask him to take care of their little one. On repeat visits, they may decorate the statue with a bib or a knitted cap.
People often leave a gift of a colorful toy pinwheel tucked into the bib strings.
As time goes by, the bibs and caps begin to fade and decay in the rain and the sun. Some temples have literally hundreds of little Jizo statues in various states of dress. When a breeze stirs the pinwheels in the rotting bibs, the effect is downright eerie. It may seem puzzling that there could be so many dead children in a first-world country like Japan, but I can solve that puzzle in one word. The politicians who have banned birth control pills in this country for the past thirty years should visit these temples alone and do some long and serious meditating.