Leave it to the Japanese to squeeze blood from a turnip—or, in this case, a daikon radish.

Anthropomorphizing Asians see a fable of perseverance [1] in the plucky radish that pushed its way up through the pavement in the little town of Aioi (which, by the way, is one “l” short of being a delicious, garlicky Proven硬 sauce [2]).

The rugged radish first popped up back in July. Instead of uprooting the deracinated [3] root vegetable, the locals named it “Dokonjo Daikon,” which reportedly means “the radish with balls,” and put up a sign that read “observe with affection.”

But last week someone pulled a Sweeney Todd on poor “Little Dai,” as the radish came to be known nationwide, and severed its leafy green head off. Was the perpetrator planning to cook up a batch of oden [4], a traditional Japanese stew with fish cakes, boiled eggs and daikon?

Stranger still, Little Dai’s head reappeared soon thereafter a short distance from the crime scene. Aioi’s town council salvaged the tuber’s top and placed it in a dish of water, hoping to revive it. But as the TimesUK’s Richard Lloyd Parry so brilliantly observed, Little Dai is doomed to remain in a vegetative state for the rest of its life.