text: Watch the amazing story of an 82-year-old man who's voluntarily lived on a deserted island for almost three decades. 
   
   A MAN who lived as a castaway on a deserted island for almost 30 years has been removed from his home after becoming the longest lasting voluntary castaway alive. 
   
   Masafumi Nagasaki arrived on the island of Sotobanari, on the Yaeyama Islands, an archipelago in the southwest of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, in 1989 and lived a life in solitude until he became known as the “naked hermit” as a 76-year-old in 2012. The island is one of the few that remain deserted in Japan where according to locals, even fisherman rarely stop. 
   
   Mr Nagasaki is among the few voluntary castaways who have spent decades on a deserted island; he has surpassed Australian castaway David Glasheen who this year celebrates 21 years on Restoration Island, off the coast of Far North Queensland. 
   
   His recent eviction was detected by Alvaro Cerezo, who documents island castaways including the ‘real life tarzan’ who lived in the deepest jungles of Vietnam. 
   
   There are no phones. No lighters. No fresh water — and not many clothes either. He braves typhoons and biting mosquitoes in the buff. 
   
   • Woman dumps herself on deserted island 
   
   • Real-life castaway: ‘He’s not afraid to die’ 
   
   • Castaway reveals difficulties of island life 
   
   Mr Nagasaki’s only wish was to die on the island he called home for the last three decades. 
   
   “Finding a place to die is an important thing to do, and I’ve decided here is the place for me,” he told Reuters in 2012. 
   
   “It hadn’t really occurred to me before how important it is to choose the place of your death, like whether it’s in a hospital or at home with family by your side. But to die here, surrounded by nature — you just can’t beat it, can you?” 
   
   He told Docastaway’s Alvaro Cerezo, who spent five days on the island with Mr Nagasaki before his sudden departure: “I don’t want to move from here, I will protect this island. I will risk my life to protect this island. I will never find a paradise like this. 
   
   “I’ve never felt sad here, I cannot survive if I have those kinds of feelings. Things here are more realistic.” 
   
   Mr Nagasaki was so confident he said he “will never move from here even if the world changes”. 
   
   “I won’t leave even if someone tells me there is a better place. All that I want I can find it here. I don’t need any thing else,” he said. 
   
   “I have no option, I’ve already told my family I will die here. My wish is to die here without bothering any one, that’s why I don’t want to get sick or injured. I want to be killed by a typhoon, so nobody can try to save me. To die here is the best, its just perfect for me.” 
   
   It’s unclear how Mr Nagasaki ended up on Sotobanari in the first place. At one point he was married and there are suspicions he has two children, but he “doesn’t like to talk about his past”, according to Mr Cerezo. 
   
   He was believed to have been a photographer before escaping civilisation, but again, “he doesn’t want to hear or talk about”. He even apparently ran his own hostess club in Niigata, a port city in Honshu, Japan’s main island. 
   
   Mr Nagasaki said he was working in a factory in Osaka when one day a colleague told him about a mysterious archipelago and since then he dreamt of escaping from civilisation. One day, when on a flight, he was “horrified” by the amount of pollution he saw in the sea below and “exploded”. So the self-confessed “city man with no outdoor experience” packed his bags and found his remote island hideaway. He thought he would stay perhaps two years max, but ended up clocking almost 30 years. 
   
   “In civilisation people treated me like an idiot and made me feel like one. On this island I don’t feel like that,” he said. 
   
   “Here, on the island I don’t do what people tell me to do, I just follow nature’s rules. You can’t dominate nature so you have to obey it completely.” 
   
   Mr Nagasaki spent his first few years on the island clothed but when a typhoon swept through and destroyed his few belongings, he realised “wearing clothes here was completely out of place for me” and began to live life commando. 
   
   “Walking around naked doesn’t really fit in with normal society, but here on the island it feels right, it’s like a uniform,” he told Reuters in 2012. 
   
   “If you put on clothes you’ll feel completely out of place.” 
   
   He’s spent the rest of his time on the island naked and alone but he found friends in some strange places; he stopped eating meat and fish and refused to eat the vast number of turtle eggs left by its maternal visitors. 
   
   “I’ve seen those baby turtles being born and crawling towards the sea. I get goosebumps every time I see that. It makes me think how wonderful life is. 
   
   “This environment makes me feel like that this island really changed me. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I have no problem with it.” 
   
   Despite the freedom of a tropical paradise, Mr Nagasaki’s routine was strict; gym session in the morning, followed by hours of beach cleaning with a pair pf white gloves and a rake. 
   
   “I have never seen a beach as clean as his, not even in the most luxurious island resorts,” Mr Cerezo said. 
   
   “They were five unforgettable days and I am extremely thankful to have had the opportunity to see through his eyes for the last time and enjoy his precious island.” 
   
   Fast forward to April 2018 and authorities have removed the 82-year-old and returned him back to civilisation. 
   
   “He was kicked out of the island, someone saw him on the island and it seems like he was weak,” Mr Cerezo told news.com.au. 
   
   “They called the police and they took him back to civilisation and that’s it. He couldn’t even fight back because he was weak. They won’t allow him to return.” 
   
   Mr Cerezo, whose business it is to find idyllic islands and host private visitors, said that since being removed, Mr Nagasaki is now living in the nearest city to the island, Ishigaki, 60 kilometres away in a government house. 
   
   “His health is OK, he was probably only sick or had the flu [when he was taken] but they won’t allow him to go back any more, he cannot go there, it’s over.” 
   
   — For more information about Masafumi Nagasaki visit nagasaki.docastaway.com. 
   
   — For more information on Alvaro Cerezo and Docastaway, visit docastaway.com 
   
   — Continue the conversation with Matt Young on Facebook or Twitter ||||| SOTOBANARI ISLAND, Japan (Reuters) - Dangerous currents swirl around Sotobanari island, which has not a drop of natural water, and local fishermen rarely land there. 
   
   Seventy-six-year-old naked hermit Masafumi Nagasaki sits at table made from polystyrene box as he eats a food on Sotobanari island, off western coast of Iriomote island, Okinawa prefecture, April 14, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer 
   
   But 76-year-old Masafumi Nagasaki has made this kidney-shaped island in Japan’s tropical Okinawa prefecture his retirement home, with an unusual dress code: nothing at all. 
   
   Naked, he braves lashing typhoons and biting insects as a hermit in the buff. 
   
   “I don’t do what society tells me, but I do follow the rules of the natural world. You can’t beat nature so you just have to obey it completely,” he said. 
   
   “That’s what I learned when I came here, and that’s probably why I get by so well.” 
   
   Seventy-six-year-old naked hermit Masafumi Nagasaki speaks on Sotobanari island, off western coast of Iriomote island, Okinawa prefecture, April 14, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer 
   
   The wiry Nagasaki, his skin leathered by the sun of two decades on the island, worked briefly as a photographer before spending years on the murkier side of the entertainment industry. When retirement came, he wanted to get far away from it all. 
   
   He chose Sotobanari, which is roughly a 1,000 meters across and means “Outer Distant island” in the local dialect. It lies off the coast of Iriomote island, far closer to Taiwan than to Tokyo. 
   
   His resolve was tested relatively soon into his stay when a massive typhoon swept over the island, scouring away most of the scrub he had counted on for shade, as well as carrying away the simple tent he lived in. 
   
   “I just scorched under the sun,” he said. “It was at that point I thought this was going to be an impossible place to live.” 
   
   For the first year he lived on Sotobanari, he threw on clothes whenever boats passed his way. But slowly the island stripped away his embarrassment. 
   
   “Walking around naked doesn’t really fit in with normal society, but here on the island it feels right, it’s like a uniform,” he said. “If you put on clothes you’ll feel completely out of place.” 
   
   Slideshow (7 Images) 
   
   He does throw on clothes once a week for a trip to a settlement an hour away by boat, where he buys food and drinking water. He also collects the 10,000 yen ($120) sent to him by his family, on which he lives. 
   
   His staple food is rice cakes, which he boils in water, eating whenever hunger strikes - sometimes four or five times a day. Water for bathing and shaving comes from rainwater caught in a system of battered cooking pots. 
   
   Each day is conducted according to a strict timetable, starting with stretches in the sun on the beach. The rest is a race against time as he prepares food, washes and cleans his camp before the light fails and insects come out to bite. 
   
   It isn’t the healthiest of lifestyles, he concedes - but that isn’t the point. 
   
   “Finding a place to die is an important thing to do, and I’ve decided here is the place for me,” he said. 
   
   “It hadn’t really occurred to me before how important it is to choose the place of your death, like whether it’s in a hospital or at home with family by your side. But to die here, surrounded by nature - you just can’t beat it, can you?” 
   
   ($1 = 80.3800 Japanese yen) ||||| Published on Jun 24, 2018 
   
   Masafumi Nagasaki is an 82 year old Japanese man who has lived completely alone as a castaway for the last 29 years on Sotobanari desert island (Iriomote Okinawa, Japan) 
   
   
   
   This voluntary Robinson Crusoe with his bright pink turban has spent all this time living completely naked and surviving by himself. He has become the voluntary castaway who has lived the longest time on a desert island. 
   
   
   
   The only wish of this survivor was to die on his desert island. But sadly the Japanese Authorities forced him to return to civilization last month :( 
   
   
   
   Fortunately we lived with him for 5 unforgettable days before he was kicked out, and were able to share his life and carry out this fascinating interview documentary. 
   
   
   
   
   
   READ FULL STORY: https://bit.ly/2lAnMUl 
   
   
   
   NAGASAKI TRIBUTE WEBSITE: http://nagasaki.docastaway.com/ 
   
   
   
   
   
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   WE HAVE ALSO DISCOVERED MORE ROBINSON LIKE HIM: 
   
   
   
   - Watch 'The Vietnamese Tarzan' https://youtu.be/jXw3Mfe9Sm0 
   
   
   
   - Watch 'The Australian Hermit' https://youtu.be/w4NichvCRlE 
   
   
   
   - Watch 'The First Castaway Girl' https://youtu.be/TdtB6Eol-rE 
   
   
   
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   Become a Robinson with us: http://www.docastaway.com/ 
   
   
   
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   Appearing on this video: 
   
   
   
   - Alvaro Cerezo https://www.facebook.com/AlvaroDocast... 
   
   - Tamiki Kato https://www.facebook.com/tamiki.kato 
   
   
   
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target: – He used to be a city boy with zero experience with the great outdoors. But that didn't stop Masafumi Nagasaki from heading to the uninhabited Japanese island of Sotobanari for what he thought would be a two-year respite from the rest of the world. That was in 1989, as the man who came to be known as the "naked hermit" ended up sticking around until this past April, a nearly 30-year stay all by his lonesome. The 82-year-old, who long ago eschewed clothing, technology, and other creature comforts and had hoped to die on the island, was removed earlier this year after someone reportedly called authorities out of concern he'd become too weak, documentary maker Alvaro Cerezo tells News.com.au. "They took him back to civilization and that's it," Cerezo says. "They won't allow him to return." Cerezo spent five days with Nagasaki before he was booted from his "paradise," where he insists he was never lonely, bored, or sad. A 2012 Reuters article reported Nagasaki did don clothing once a week to make a boat trip to a settlement an hour away to buy food and water; he'd also collect an allowance sent from his family. Speaking of family, Nagasaki was once married and may have had a couple of kids, but he "doesn't like to talk about his past," Cerezo notes. What he missed most from his former life while he was holed up on the island: lighters, per the documentary. What he didn't miss: money and religion. "[Those] two things are destroying the world," he says. He also wished he could have been killed by a typhoon during his stay so "nobody [would] try to save me." Nagasaki is now living in a government house in a city about 40 miles away from his beloved island. (This man is one of central Europe's last hermits.)