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2024 Japan House of Representatives election

A sample ballot for the 2024 review of Supreme Court justices is seen. (Mainichi)

COVID vaccination close-up

Kazuhiro Haraguchi, a House of Representatives member belonging to the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, is seen in this Oct. 11, 2024, file photo. (Mainichi/Takahiro Igarashi)

LDP leadership race 2024

Plaintiffs in a lawsuit demanding an optional separate surname system for Japan carry a banner reading, "Toward a society where married couples can choose to have different surnames!" as they march toward the Tokyo District Court in the capital's Chiyoda Ward on June 27, 2024. (Mainichi/Ran Kanno)

Easy Japanese news in translation

(Mainichi/Rei Kubo)

Learning from Japanese picture books

The cover of the picture book "Watanabe-san." (Mainichi/Risa Koshiba)

Most read stories

The Wakayama Prefectural Police headquarters is seen in the city of Wakayama. (Mainichi/Shinji Kurokawa)

A-bomb Survivors

Nagasaki A-bomb survivor Shohei Tsuiki holds up a photo of his devastated city burned and blackened by the nuclear explosion as he speaks about his experiences in the city of Nagasaki on Nov. 2, 2024. (Mainichi/Arina Ogata)

Tsunagaru Mainichi Shimbun: Journalism on Demand

A man, right, makes a donation at a fundraising campaign held by the Ashinaga student fundraising association in front of Sapporo Station in Sapporo, Hokkaido, on April 20, 2024. (Mainichi/Hiroyuki Katano)

Retro Japan

The Gifu Civic Auditorium, with a unique conical structure, is seen in a government district in the city of Gifu on May 18, 2022. (Mainichi/Koji Hyodo)

Life in Japan

Visitors stroll under the ginkgo trees in Tokyo's Meiji Jingu Gaien area on April 28, 2024. (Mainichi/Koichiro Tezuka)

Global Perspective

Palestinians walk through the destruction in the wake of an Israeli air and ground offensive in Jebaliya, northern Gaza Strip, on May 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Enas Rami, File)

Bill Emmott

Bill Emmott (Mainichi/Tatsuya Fujii)

US military helicopters' low-altitude flights

A U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter is seen flying low near the approximately 270-meter-tall NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, in this image from video taken on Aug. 18, 2020. The footage, filmed from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building's 202-meter-high North Observatory in neighboring Shinjuku Ward, shows that the helicopter was flying at an altitude lower than the Docomo building's height. (Mainichi/Takahiro Kato)

Donald Keene's Japan: 100 yrs since his birth

Donald Keene reads a book at his home in Tokyo's Kita Ward, in this photo taken on Oct. 26, 2014. (Provided by the Donald Keene Memorial Foundation)

Young Carers

The House of Councillors passes the revised law on support for child and youth development during a plenary session on June 5, 2024. (Mainichi/Akihiro Hirata)

Japan Trivia

The changing rooms at Kotobuki Onsen feature a "folded coffered ceiling" which is uncommon today, creating a retro atmosphere, as seen at the bathhouse in Osaka's Minato Ward on Dec. 15, 2023. (Mainichi/Yujiro Futamura)

Ukrainians in Japan

Mariia Dereviyanko, 14, left, helps her younger sister, who entered elementary school this spring, prepare for school. Mariia is a member of the calligraphy club at her junior high school in Japan and has also continued to take classes online at her school in Ukraine. She is interested in biology and other subjects, but cannot yet imagine what she will be doing a year from now. (Mainichi/Daisuke Wada)

Nightscapes

The construction site where the main building of the Odakyu Department Store Shinjuku once stood is seen in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward on April 5, 2024. (Mainichi/Akihiro Ogomori)

Edging Toward Japan

Tourist crowds in Kyoto (Damian Flanagan)

Japan Motorcycle Diaries

The map of the Kansai, Chugoku and Shikoku regions in western Japan. (Google Maps)

News in Easy English

This file photo taken on Feb. 4, 2023, shows a Japan Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane. (Kyodo)

2023 Rewind

Kumamoto municipal officials announce that a passage to include foreign residents as citizens of the city has been dropped from draft amendments to the city's basic ordinance, at Kumamoto City Hall on July 25, 2023. (Mainichi/Sonoko Nakamura)

2022 Rewind

A man is seen relaxing in a bed situated inside a bookshelf at Book and Bed Tokyo in the capital's Shinjuku Ward on Nov. 18, 2021. (Mainichi/Kentaro Ikushima)

Enchanting Edo

Swordsmith Yoshindo Yoshihara is seen heating "tamahagane" steel, as he operates a traditional bellows and sends air blasts to the forge, while charcoal burns, in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward on Feb. 14, 2022. By heating the tamahagane to a maximum of 1,300 degrees Celsius, impurities are burned. (Mainichi/Emi Naito)

Natsume Soseki's Opium Dreams

Natsume Soseki in his study in Tokyo in 1914.

Hometown heritage focus with Satoshi Takahashi

Before a "kagura" performance, Tetsuya Ikeda, second from left, and his sons give a prayer to a lion mask at Kataho Hachiman-jinja shrine in Yurihonjo, Akita Prefecture, on April 17, 2022. He and eldest son Yamato, foreground, will be the lion and second son Taira, left, will be the clown, "Saizo." (Satoshi Takahashi)

2022 Japan House of Councillors election

Filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda, left, and his wife Kiyoko Kashiwagi are seen after their marriage notification under separate surnames was rejected by the Chiyoda Ward Office, at the office in Tokyo on June 13, 2022. (Mainichi/Kengo Miura)

Center court with Naomi Osaka's trainer

Denis Shapovalov, third from left, and trainer Yutaka Nakamura, far left, are seen in this provided photo.

2021 Rewind

Shoji Morimoto who rents himself out to other people "to do nothing," is seen standing near Nakano Station in Tokyo's Nakano Ward. (Mainichi/Mei Nammo)

The Marriage of Princess Mako and Kei Komuro

Mako Komuro, left, and her husband Kei Komuro are seen upon their arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Nov. 14, 2021. (Pool photo)=Click/tap photo for more images.

Kyoto in motion

A Shinto priest is seen exorcizing evil spirits for people along the street during a shrine deity parade in Kyoto's Shimogyo Ward on July 19, 2021. (Mainichi/Yoko Minami)

Full coverage of Japan general election 2021

A voter casts a ballot at a polling station in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on Oct. 31, 2021. (Mainichi/Toshiki Miyama)

LDP leadership race 2021

In this Sept. 18, 2021, file photo, Sanae Takaichi, left, and Seiko Noda, both former internal affairs ministers and candidates for the presidential election of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, attend a debate session held by the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)

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