Like his father and grandfather before him, Tanaka raises horses a few kilometers from Fukushima. Forced to evacuate the area following the nuclear power plant disaster and the tsunami on 11 March 2011, he was allowed to return to the area several weeks later but found many of his horses, like Mirror Quest, dying of hunger or traumatized by the event. Usually slaughtered after Soma Nomaoi, the centuries old traditional fest held annually to celebrate the importance of the horse in the nearby city of Haramachi, the horses, including Mirror Quest, in an ironic turn of fate are spared this unfortunate end thanks to radiation exposure.
