This kō describes an animal that has never lived in Japan. 麋 (bi/mi) refers specifically to Père David's deer — called 麋鹿 in Chinese, シフゾウ (shifuzō) in Japanese, and once known in the West only from a single imperial hunting-park herd near Beijing. Real Japanese sika deer shed their antlers in spring, not now; the animal this kō was actually describing sheds in winter, but that animal is a completely different, larger species that exists nowhere in the Japanese archipelago, wild or otherwise. The name was simply imported wholesale from a Chinese court calendar and never adjusted for the fact that Japan doesn't have the deer being described.
Père David's deer's own history since is almost stranger than the naming mix-up. Hunted and displaced to near-total loss in China by the early twentieth century — the last imperial herd largely killed off around 1900 — the species survived only because a small population had already been sent to Europe decades earlier. Every Père David's deer alive today descends from that European remnant; breeding populations were only reintroduced to China starting in 1985.
Still at its 寒鰤 peak, as rich as the buri season gets.
In excellent season, mild and flaky, central to many year-end nabe meals.
Still in full season, its zest essential through the rest of the year's cooking.
Late-season varieties keep well and remain reliably good through the cold months.
At full sweetness, essential to the season's nabe cooking.
Deep in season, excellent long-simmered in oden.
In good season, earthy and fibrous, classic in kinpira.
Nanten's clusters of small red berries carry a built-in pun — 難転, "turning misfortune away" — that made it a natural addition to entryway New Year arrangements alongside senryō and manryō, three unrelated plants united mainly by the coincidence of ripening bright red at exactly the same point in the calendar.
Kadomatsu (paired pine-and-bamboo entrance displays), shimenawa (sacred straw rope), and kagamimochi (stacked round rice cakes) are traditionally put up anytime from kotohajime on the 13th onward, but real custom narrows the acceptable window further: the 29th is avoided as 苦立て (kudate), since 29 can be read as "double suffering" (二重苦), and the 31st is avoided as 一夜飾り (ichiya-kazari, "one-night decoration"), considered disrespectful haste toward the incoming toshigami. That leaves the 28th, an auspicious day thanks to the character 八 widening as it descends, as the traditionally preferred date — with the 30th as the accepted fallback for anyone running late.
"Setting up hardship" — The specific superstition behind avoiding December 29th for New Year decorations — 29 (にく, niku, close to 二重苦, double suffering) reads as inviting hardship rather than good fortune into the coming year.
麋 names Père David's deer specifically, distinct from 鹿 (shika), the ordinary character for deer generally. The compound 麋鹿 (mílù in Chinese) is sometimes rendered in old Japanese texts as 四不像 (shifuzō, "resembling four things and none of them") — a folk description of an animal with a stag's antlers, a camel's neck, a donkey's tail, and hooves like an ox's, matching no single animal cleanly.
Kumamoto City Zoo and Hiroshima's Asa Zoological Park both keep small captive populations of the actual animal this kō describes — as close as anyone in Japan can get to seeing 麋 rather than an ordinary sika deer standing in for it.
The 28th is the traditionally favored day; if that's already passed, the 30th is the accepted alternative — either beats the discouraged 29th or 31st.
A genuinely rare animal to see in Japan outside of a handful of zoos, and an unusually direct way to connect a kō's name to the actual creature behind it.
Good ones sell out closer to the 28th–30th window everyone is aiming for — earlier ordering means more selection.
If you've been saving a special buri dish for the best possible fish, this is close to as good as the season gets.
Every Père David's deer alive today exists only because a small population had already been moved far from home, decades before the species disappeared entirely from the place it actually belonged. What must have looked, at the time, like nothing but loss turned out to be the only reason anything was left to bring back later. What have you been pushed away from that you're only now recognizing as the thing that ended up saving you?