KITAAKITA, Japan — Japanese confectioner Keiji Minatoya's brush with death began when he lifted the shutter of his garage and came face to face with a black bear waiting on the other side.

"We locked eyes in silence," he said, staring into the outbuilding beside his shop in rural Kitaakita in northern Japan where he had unwittingly trapped the apex predator. "I thought I was done for."