Category: Miscellaneous

Oh Deer!

June 8, 2026

As with every onsen I’ve stayed in this one rotates the gender of the baths periodically, so this morning I had a different outdoor experience that was even better than last night! Surrounding the bath are waterfalls, heavy foliage and even a torii gates (!) and this ambience made my dawn soak extremely relaxing, suitably preparing me for another big day.

Would you believe I saw some deer?

While there were loads of tourists yesterday in the rain, today the sun was out and tourist numbers were bonkers. Even at 9 am when I set out, there were much bigger crowds around the deer than I saw yesterday.

Many deer congregate at the edge of the park closest to the station, since they’ve learned that’s where most tourists first encounter them. What happens is everyone goes agog when they see the deer, lingering and taking many photos, and Mia importantly buying deer crackers! By the time most tourists have continued further into the park the thrill has worn off since there are deer everywhere!

But Nara is more than just the deer, and I explored the shrines and temples of the park today as well. Most of what I saw today I’ve seen before, but as I said it’s been a decade since I was last here so I wanted to refresh my memories. The building above is the famous Daibutsuden – the largest wooden building in the world – which houses this:

That’s Daibutsu, a fifty-foot tall Buddha statue. Over 1250 years old, this is one of the most famous sights in all of Japan. When I was there today I shared the building with what seemed like a thousand school kids, who themselves were only a fraction of the screaming hordes of children that i saw in Nara today. To say the deer excited them was an understatement!

It was starting to warm up after the Buddha, and I observed the deer behavior was notably different from yesterday. While in the rain they were very active, today for them seemed like a rest day and many of them were just loafing.

The boys have impressive antlers right now, and they’re so relaxed you can touch them and they hardly react. The antlers feel flocked and slightly warm. Here’s a macro photo of what one looks like close up:

It’s only the fact that I’m basically a local in Japan that these handsome beasts accept me. If you visit Nara, you’ll want to pay attention to the warning signs:

I headed further east into Nara park and came upon a series of temples built on a sloping hill. These looked ancient and were very scenic and – since I was early and the deer were uncommon here – mostly empty of tourists. The clouds had returned now (it was around noon) and humidity descended like a heavy blanket so I was overjoyed to find a shaded rest house and a drink machine containing a life saving beverage:

When I rose from this brief repose I felt a twinge in my leg. Perhaps all this activity had caught up with me, and I hobbled slightly as I continued on. Providence smiled on me that moment since I came upon a small shrine to a dove spirit, and didn’t hesitate to purchase an ema (wishing plaque) and beseech the god for aid. Here’s my wish:

After only a few steps I thought I heard the flutter of a doves wing and feel my pain immediately disappear almost as if it had never existed in the first place! Maybe wishes can come true!

I saw a lot of babies today, which was interesting because I saw none yesterday. These were favourites of the tourists, and unfortunately I saw a few being harassed by people approaching them when signs (obviously) said they shouldn’t.

And then I purchased an ice cream, and as I was setting up a selfie with a picturesque shrine in the distance (which required me to crouch), this happened:

The sneaky little girl wanted my ice cream! Or maybe she just wanted to be in the photo 🙂

I’m so glad I stayed here. For most visitors to Japan Nara is only a several hour day trip and I doubt many ever return. But I had very fond memories of this place and this stay has reminded me why. If you’re ever in Japan, be sure to come and visit the deer!

Later in the day I went to a nearby mall to visit a ‘Goldfish Museum’, the less said about the better. Fortuitously the mall also had a gigantic Round 1 game center in it, and I happily fed medals into the Monster Hunter medal game for a half hour or so. Apparently my medal game luck hasn’t abated, since for at least half that time I was winning much more than I was putting in and I had visions of walking away from buckets of medals like KLS and I did in January!

As I was about to leave the mall I noticed this sign:

What this?!? They use AI to make (free) stickers of photos?!? I set a land speed record walking to the booth and airdropping a photo to a helpful young man, and in about two minutes he handed me this:

This one is going on a postcard tonight!

It’s dusk now and the tourists are all heading back to Kyoto or Osaka or Tokyo. The shops are beginning to close and (as the hotel girl that speaks some English claimed) the deer are heading to ‘the jungle’! Could it be they are secretly wild beasts who only come to town in the day to be fed by charmed tourists? I’m skeptical, but then I’m also too tired to go out and see if they’re still there after dark.

That’s a quest for the next time I visit Nara 🙂

59.5 Hours of Kamen Rider!

May 16, 2026

2025 was “the year I got into Kamen Rider” and indeed I did! I invested heavily into DVD sets and started watching the new series as it was released. Here’s the first in a series of my thoughts, presented in the order in which the shows/films were released.

Kamen Rider Black (1987, 51 episodes, 21.5 hours)

The DVD sets I own spanned decades, and for no particular reason I began with this one from 1987. It tells the story of a Japan besieged by an evil group called Gorgom who kidnap two brothers and turn them into cyborgs. One (Kotaro) escapes and becomes ‘Kamen Rider Black’, destined to fight Gorgom to prevent them from destroying the world.

This is a fantastic series! It’s dark and violent with many horror elements and Kotaru’s struggle (as Kamen Rider) against Gorgom seems futile and almost never gives him any respite. The story is insane, with elements like the ‘Century King’, the ‘Sword Saint Bergonia’ arc and the takeover of Gorgom by the evil cyborg ‘Shadow Moon’ but it somehow works and builds toward a superb conclusion.

Many elements of this show reminded me of the classic series Monkey we loved as kids, and of course I already did a blog post about its beautiful closing theme. Black is hailed as one of the greatest Kamen Rider series of all time for good reason, and the only negative about me watching it first was my realization that I may have hit the peak at the very start!

Kamen Rider Black RX (1988, 47 episodes, 19.5 hours)

Black was a success and for the first time in the series history the network wanted a sequel. It was decided to tone down the violence and horror, and add elements to make the sequel more marketable to children. While it has the same actor playing ostensibly the same character, Kamen Rider RX is a very different series.

The cult Gorgom is gone, replaced with an extradimensional invasion from the ‘Crisis Empire’. The bizarre mutant monsters from Black are replaced with robots, and Kotaro is now living with a family and flying helicopters for work! His history fighting Gorgom is given token mention only, and he’s never referred to as a cyborg at any time. Indeed his powers now come from the sun!

While this is undeniably inferior to Black, I still greatly enjoyed RX. The fight scenes are great, and Kotaro still struggles against a vastly more resourceful foe. But he’s received many upgrades, and the lightsaber effect of his ‘Revolcane’ sword in particular is too-good for TV circa 1988.

The show struggled during its airing, and this is apparent with some tonal shifts (they introduce Shadow Moon and even 10 older Riders to lure back viewers) and even though it gets increasingly goofy (adding sidekicks like a token ‘psychic girl’) it never lost its charm for me.

RX was the last Kamen Rider produced during the Showa Era and it would be more than a decade before another TV series would be made. During that period three films were released:

Shin: Kamen Rider Prologue (1992, 1.5 hours)

This is an unusual addition to the franchise, and one of the few Kamen Rider shows where the rider himself is biological rather than cybernetic. The story is that a mysterious group (‘The Syndicate’) is creating soldiers by fusing humans with grasshoppers, and one of their creations manages to escape and thwart their plans. I’ve extrapolated a bit there, since motivations and intents are a bit lost in the script, and overall the story is a bit muddled.

This is a horror film, with not only the villian but also very much the Rider himself being grotesque. There’s a very Cronenbergian feeling to the film, with lots of violence and a shocking (for this franchise) amount of blood. It’s not (close to) great, and I’m not even sure I’d say it’s good – mostly because I don’t like the Rider design – but it was entertaining regardless.

Apparently this was intended as a sort of pilot for a series or film sequel, but was not successful enough for either. As such, it remains a strange oddity in the larger franchise.

Kamen Rider ZO (1993, 1 hour)

This second film was released a year later and the story is even more barebones than the previous. Once again we have a hero becoming a Rider after a scientist grafts grasshopper DNA into him, but his fight to protect a child from the evil ‘Neo-life form’ named Doras raises more questions than it answers.

Regardless, this is a stylish film of near-endless action scenes where ZO faces off against several monstrous threats brought to life with clever use of practical effects and stop motion. The spider creature in particular is extremely well done even today and would have been a real thrill back when the film was released. While short, this was a fun watch.

Kamen Rider J (1994, 1 hour)

The next year we saw yet another new short film, and this one is very similar to ZO from the previous year. The origin story now is that our hero is killed defending a young girl from a space entity named ‘Fog Mother’ and is promptly resurrected by ‘The Spirits Of The Earth’ into Kamen Rider J, who must save the world from ruin.

There’s lots to like here, from the extremely impressive creature suits to the fight scenes to the stop-motion cute sidekick ‘Berry’ the grasshopper! Toward the end it even gets a bit too close to Ultraman when J becomes massive to fight the gigantic Fog Mother. Another fun film.

Shin Kamen Rider (2023, 51 episodes, 2 hours)

This is the third in the series of tokusatsu films made by Hideaki Anno and given the two previous were Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman (my favourite film of all time) I had high hopes to say the least.

It’s a retelling of the original Kamen Rider premise: an evil organization named Shocker is creating mutant/cyborg hybrids to take over the world, and a lone hero – Kamen Rider – fights to stop them. There’s a lot more to it than this of course, including the usual Anno weirdness, but this is a film that asks the viewer to turn off their brain and just sit back and enjoy the ride.

And what a ride it is. This is crazy and weird and wonderful and in my opinion a successful reimagining of the franchise in a way respectful of both experienced and unfamiliar audiences. It was a success theatrically, although rumours of a sequel seem to have amounted to nothing so far. This one is free on Amazon Prime if you haven’t seen it.

Kamen Rider Zeztz (2025, 34+ episodes, 13+ hours)

This is the latest Kamen Rider series and is currently screening (for free) on YouTube weekly. The gap between current franchise entries and the Showa series I’ve already seen is immense, but – much like Ultraman – the same DNA is there and this is still recognizably Kamen Rider.

This time the hero assumes the role of a secret agent in his dreams, and can transform into a powerful hero called ‘Zeztz’ to fight various evildoers. I’m 34 episodes in and loving this show for its characters and stylish visuals and genuinely impressive storytelling. When – more than twenty episodes in – the show revealed everything that had already happened was (spoiler) one lengthy dream I was genuinely surprised! I’m looking forward to buying some Zeztz merchandise during my upcoming Japan trip 🙂

Nearly 60 hours in and I’ve only just started with this decades-old franchise. I won’t be stopping! And yes, I’m still watching Ultraman and I’ve already got a decent DVD collection of old Metal Heroes series as well 😉

Wildlife Update

April 10, 2026

Ok I’ll be honest: I forgot about our new wildlife camera. It had been happily sitting at the edge of our back patio, snapping away for four months now and when I rediscovered it yesterday there were more than 1600 images on it!

Most were empty and probably the result of snow, rain or a rogue leaf triggering the sensor, but there were quite a few animals to be seen as well.

As usual there were a lot like the above (which was taken on Christmas Day while we were in Japan), but also this shot of a squirrel being a bit more industrious:

Is that an acorn in his mouth?

There were also many – hundreds – of rabbit photos, all of which were at night in the snow. As you see there’s two in the above shot (taken early January), but what also caught my eye are the footprints in the top right. Here’s a better photo of them from a few days earlier:

They’re fairly big which suggests a deer, but they could also simply be a rabbit hopping through the snow? Unfortunately the camera didn’t catch them being made.

Two different cats visited these past few months, one quite a bit portlier than the other. Each was only in a single photo, so they were just passing through.

Here’s the fox from the last set, also passing through. Was he looking for rabbits, or perhaps smaller prey?

Such as whatever the above is? This is too small for a chipmunk so I assume some sort of mouse, and as we can tell from the blur it was legging it past the feeder. The white streak is its eye reflecting the UV light from the camera.

Chipmunks are also speedy little guys and difficult to catch on these cameras so the above is a good photo of one. This is fairly recent, so maybe it’s gotten warm enough for them to emerge from their burrows?

Birds are also somewhat rare on these photos, but here we see a mystery bird, a cardinal and a robin. Can anyone identify the one on the left.

And lastly this skunk visited us one night! There were a half dozen or so pics of it, all at very close range so his face was never visible. The camera is right next to the house so he came very close. I wonder if Loppi (who often monitors the yard from a window perch) saw him?

And if you’re wondering, there wasn’t even a single deer photo. This is highly unusual to say the least. I wonder where they’ve been?

Robot Claw