The Japanese city of Nara has long been known to be overrun by deer.

The wild sika deer wander about Nara Park, a public park in the city, and also appear to have free range throughout the city. Nara was Japan’s capital in the 700’s, but now the city is arguably best known around the world for the herds of oddly polite ruminants.

Yoko Ishii

Photographer Yoko Ishii found these deer to be fascinating when she encountered and fed some cookies on a school trip to Nara as a child.

She has since been taking photographs of the deer as they walk freely through the town. The results are quite mesmerizing.

Yoko Ishii

“I imagined a [whole] world where human beings disappeared and deer dominate... or men metamorphosed suddenly [in]to deer in a morning,” she told The Huffington Post.

She also used the word “Kafkaesque” to describe the photos and we couldn’t agree more. They are a dream come to life.

The people of the region traditionally considered as deer servants of the gods, called “Shin-Roku.” The number of deer continues to grow in the country, with numbers reaching nearly 2.5 million.

Ishii’s book of photographs, “Dear Deer” is available here.