I know the following claim might come off as slightly suspicious, posted at 1:34am and freshly back from drinking in Shinjuku, but… I just saw a tanuki casually crossing the boulevard, two blocks from our house. A freaking tanuki. In the middle of Tokyo.

I would have chalked it up to alcohol and a very weird-looking cat, but the taxi driver was even more categorical that the thing was neither an itachi nor a cat, but indeed a tanuki.

Next week: wild boars in our courtyard.