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

March 2

Sumo grand champion Terunofuji performs a ceremonial ring-entering ritual at Sumiyoshi Taisha shrine in Osaka, ahead of the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament starting in the western Japan city on March 10. (Kyodo)
 
A test flight for a flying vehicle is conducted with two people on board in Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefecture. The southwestern Japan city is considering putting the vehicle, eyed as an ambulance, to practical use by fiscal 2027, to cater to local medical needs amid a shortage of doctors. (Kyodo)

March 3

A wooden boat loaded with about 500 traditional Japanese "hina" dolls is cast out to sea during an annual Girls' Day festival at a Shinto shrine in Wakayama. (Kyodo)
 
Kenyan Benson Kipruto and Ethiopian Sutume Kebede win the Tokyo Marathon with respective men's and women's race records, while men's ninth-placed Yusuke Nishiyama, the first Japanese runner across the finish line, misses his ticket to the Paris Games as he fell outside the Japan's Olympic qualification benchmark. (Kyodo)

March 4

A fishing boat with a crew of 25 mostly Indonesian nationals ran aground off Tokyo's Izu Islands, with the Japan Coast Guard confirming the sole missing member, a Japanese citizen, dead. (Kyodo)
 
Japan's Nikkei stock index ended at a closing high above the 40,000 mark for the first time, reaching the milestone just over a week after hitting a new all-time high for the first time in 34 years. (Kyodo)
 

March 5

China sets itself a gross domestic product growth target of around 5 percent for 2024 during the opening of the annual National People's Congress session at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, with the Asian powerhouse striving to shore up its slowing economy amid a long-running property crisis. (Kyodo)
 
Uber Eats Japan Inc. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. will launch a new food delivery service in central Tokyo using self-driving robots, with plans to roll out the service more widely in the future. (Kyodo)

March 6

Japan's undisputed world super bantamweight boxing champion Naoya Inoue will face Mexico's Luis Nery at Tokyo Dome on May 6. Inoue and Nery pose for a photo in Tokyo. (Kyodo)
 
Yokozuna Terunofuji attends a training session in Osaka ahead of the upcoming Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in the western Japan city. (Kyodo)

March 7

Architect Riken Yamamoto (2nd from R) meets the press alongside U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel (3rd from R) in Tokyo after winning the U.S. Pritzker prize, dubbed the Nobel prize of architecture. (Kyodo)
 
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's ruling Liberal Democratic Party agrees to revise its rules to strengthen governance, saying it will move away from factions as vehicles for securing funds and allocating key government and party posts for lawmakers. (Kyodo)
 
Futaba Post Office in the town of Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, which suspended its operations in the aftermath of the March 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan's northeast, reopens at a new location after 13 years. (Kyodo)

March 8

Tourists touch a statue of a character from Akira Toriyama's best-known work, "Dragon Ball," in Tokyo after the news that the creator died of an acute subdural hematoma on March 1, aged 68, made the headlines around the world. (Kyodo)

A ceremony to award a Self-Defense Forces flag to a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine is held at a shipyard of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan. The submarine, "Jingei," will be deployed to the MSDF Yokosuka Base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo. (Kyodo)

Megumi Ueda speaks at a press conference in Tokyo after filing a lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court. Twelve people filed lawsuits against the government, 10 with the Tokyo District Court and two with the Sapporo District Court, claiming that the legal provisions that force married couples to use the same surname are unconstitutional. (Kyodo)

Back number:

Japan and beyond: Week in Photos - Feb. 24 - March 1

Japan and beyond: Week in Photos - Feb. 17-23

Japan and beyond: Week in Photos - Feb. 10-16

Japan and beyond: Week in Photos - Feb. 3-9