It’s cherry blossom season here in Japan.

I’ve been having my first experiences of hanami.

The blossoms themselves are pretty spectacular. But I’m more impressed by the effect they seem to have.

It’s like a national party. Parks are stuffed full of people picnicking and boozing. Not just young people either: I keep seeing otherwise quite conventional-looking grown-ups – old folks, too – all grinning, giggling, playing silly b&ggers and occasionally falling over and passing out.

It’s catching. 😀

London has pigeons. Tokyo has crows.

They seem supremely relaxed. Unlike British crows, whose asthmatic GRAAK! makes them sound like bad tempered old men, Japanese crows make a sound like a posh English person casually referring to the author of Brideshead Revisited: WAUGH, they say. WAUGH.

I’ve heard people here say they bring bad luck. One young woman who lives near Yoyogi Park, where I took the first pic above, told me she lives in fear that one day a crow will peck her eyes out. Famous carrion eaters that they are, it’s easy to speculate that the crows’ prevalence here is a reflection of Japan’s impressively horrifying history of death, destruction and disaster, both man-made and natural.

I’ve only been watching the crows here for three seasons now, but I have a different theory…

I think they watch over Japan – and their intelligence, stylishness and resilience are reflections of their kingdom.

This week on Trapped By Monsters – now, apparently, one of Tesco Magazine’s Top 10 Kids’ Book Blogs – your fearless correspondent uncovers an elaborate hoax on humans by Tokyo’s monster population.

Vernal Equinox Day in Shinjuku Gyoen:

A perfect time and place, it seems, for brisk, coat-clad picnics near the early blossom…

…photographing trees…

…and trying to look like you’ve grown horns.