This 1830s woodcut print by the Edo artist Hasegawa Settan shows people chasing fireflies on broad rice paddies early in the evening. Men and boys are swishing around long bamboo brooms trying to catch high-flying males, while women and less nimble hunters are wafting fans around to trap low-hovering female bugs. While we see some new arrivals hurrying to join in, two boys with their cages full of the luminous beetles are happily making their way home.
Though the pastoral countryside is no longer, thanks to citizen's efforts part of the wooded hill beyond the bridge has escaped development. Called Otomeyama, meaning "shogun's reserve," as a hunting area for the shogun it used to be off-limits to lesser mortals. In the modern age, the area has changed hands many times, and each time it's been carved into further by schools and condominiums, although the verdant hill at its core has survived as a veritable oasis hidden in what is now a residential district.
Otomeyama Nature Park, as the remains of the shogun's hunting ground has now become, is best approached from Shimo-Ochiai Station on the Seibu Shinjuku Line (one stop from JR Takadanobaba Station). From the North Exit, bear left to cross the bridge over the Myoshoji -- now a sad, cemented waterway -- then go right to cross congested Shin Meijiro-dori. Then, walking straight down a narrow road ahead, take the first right to a T-junction and turn left, whereupon you will see tall evergreen trees rising above houses ahead -- remnants of the woodland on the rolling hills in Settan's print.