Japan and beyond: Week in Photos

Here is a selection of Kyodo News photos taken this week in Japan and beyond.

March 9

In an annual event heralding the arrival of spring, controlled burning known as "noyaki" in Japanese is held at the Kusasenri grasslands on Mt. Aso in Aso, Kumamoto Prefecture. (Kyodo)

A graduation ceremony is held at a junior high school in the quake-hit town of Noto in Ishikawa Prefecture, where the gymnasium is still being used as an evacuation shelter for residents who remain displaced from their homes since the New Year's Day disaster. (Kyodo)

Foreign fans of Akira Toriyama, best known as the creator of the "Dragon Ball" manga series, gather at spots in Tokyo linked to his work and anime culture to remember the legend after his death was announced the previous day. (Kyodo)

March 10

Yuka Ando wins the Nagoya Women's Marathon in a personal-best but was unable to secure a ticket to the Paris Olympics, as she fell short of beating the national record set by Honami Maeda at January's Osaka Women's Marathon to make it onto the Japanese team. (Kyodo)

March 11

The sun rises on the 13th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, where the monument to the "Miracle Pine," the only tree that survived in a coastal forest flattened by the March 2011 tsunami, stands. (Kyodo)

Japan marks 13 years since a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami devastated its northeastern region, claiming the lives of 15,900 people and triggering one of the world's worst nuclear accidents. (Kyodo)

China's parliament ends its weeklong annual session, during which it revised a law to articulate the ruling Communist Party's control over the country's Cabinet, further cementing the power of President Xi Jinping, who heads the party, and suggesting a diminishing role for Premier Li Qiang. (Kyodo)

March 12

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition camp agree to convene the House of Councillors ethics committee over a political funds scandal that has rocked the LDP. Seiko Hashimoto, who served as president of the now-defunct Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic organizing committee, and two other LDP upper house lawmakers intend to testify at the session. (Kyodo)

The annual "omizutori" water-drawing fire ceremony, which dates back to 752, is held at the Nigatsudo hall of Todai-ji temple in Nara. (Kyodo)

March 13

Photo taken from a Kyodo News helicopter shows a satellite-carrying Kairos rocket exploding shortly after liftoff from Japan's first commercial launch site in Kushimoto in Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan. Space One Co. was aiming to become the first private Japanese firm to place a satellite into orbit. (Kyodo)

A man writes down responses from major Japanese companies in annual wage negotiations on a white board in Tokyo. Companies including Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. offered their largest pay hikes in decades at the negotiations that could determine whether the country can finally overcome its chronic deflation. (Kyodo)

Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitches in a spring training baseball game against the Seattle Mariners in Glendale, Arizona. Yamamoto gave up four runs on eight hits over 4-2/3 innings to take a loss in his final spring training start. (Kyodo)

March 14

A U.S. military MV-22 Osprey aircraft flies after taking off from U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in the southern Japan prefecture of Okinawa on March 14, 2024. The resumption of flights in Japan for the tilt-rotor aircraft came after Washington lifted a worldwide flight ban on U.S. Ospreys following a crash last November off a southwestern Japan island. (Kyodo)

Plaintiffs hold up a banner following a ruling on same-sex marriage at the Tokyo District Court. The court ruled that the lack of legal recognition of same-sex marriage in the country is in a state of unconstitutionality. (Kyodo)

No. 3 maegashira Oho (R) defeats injury-prone grand champion Terunofuji on the fifth day of the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament at Edion Arena Osaka on March 14, 2024. (Kyodo)

March 15