The Baku is a creature of Japanese folklore that eats nightmares, formed from the parts left over when the gods finished making all the other animals; the word is also used for the real animal, the tapir. Takashi Hara's photobook plays on the vague line between the dry banality of the real world and the strange tragedy that lies beyond it: black-and-white photographs of ordinary scenes and moments captured at just the right time, in which Hara seems able to pierce the appearance of the world as if it were a thin membrane. The pictures depict the real, tinted with a hint of something deeper, perhaps a new truth, a threat or a long-forgotten memory. Legend has it that if the Baku devours your nightmares too often, it starts to devour your hopes and dreams as well. Kanae Takahashi's afterword speaks of moments in front of a vast sea, inside a shopping centre, in a house lined up with others along the river and inside a zoo cage, calm and peaceful at first glance but hiding an uncertain, unsettling atmosphere.