Only One Woman

A protester is removed from a statue near the Japanese Consulate General in Busan, South Korea. The sculpture, which represents Korean labourers who were forcibly mobilised by Japan during its 1910-1945 colonial rule, has been moved to another location in the city. Photo: EPA.

Dynamics of non-vertical lines

A woman rides an escalator as another woman walks by in Tokyo, Japan. Photo: AFP/Martin Bureau.

A Company of Swans

Dancers dressed as swans perform during the Sanja Festival (三社祭) in Asakusa district, Taitō, Tokyo, Japan. Photo: Carl Court/Getty Images.

Playbox

A guest rests in his room at Nine Hours Shinjuku-North, a capsule hotel in the Shinjuku special ward of Tokyo, Japan. Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters.

Easy Go

The 2018 World Go Championship will take place at Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo, Japan from 17–19 March 2018. The winner will walk away with 20 million yen ($178,000) in prize money and a Nike award. The participants are as follows: 柯洁 (Kē Jié) (China), Park Junghwan (South Korea), Shin Jin-seo (South Korea), 井山 裕太 (Iyama Yūta) (Japan), 山下敬吾 (Yamashita Keigo) (Japan), and 王元均 (Wáng Yuánjūn) (Taipei).

戌 (Dog)

14-year-old male sea lion Chen writes the Chinese character 戌 (dog) at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise (八景島シーパラダイス) aquarium in Yokohama (横浜), Japan to mark the imminence of the Year of the Dog which will begin on February 16, 2018. Photo: Aflo/Rex/Shutterstock.

An Eye on the Thames

• Andrey Fyodorovich Kartashov, Илюмжинов: Лондон может принять матч за звание чемпиона мира по шахматам 2018 года | Ilyumzhinov: London is entitled to host the World Chess Championship match in 2018, TASS, May 24, 2017

Ilyumzhinov: London is entitled to host the World Chess Championship match in 2018 Earlier, Japan, South Korea and Singapore also expressed the wish to hold the World Chess Championship match MOSCOW, May 24, 2017. TASS correspondent: Andrey Fyodorovich Kartashov. London intends to submit a bid for the 2018 World Chess Championship match. Thus stated the President of the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov. In 2016, the World Chess Championship match was held in New York, United States. Magnus Carlsen from Norway confirmed himself as World Champion, winning the crown in the tie-break against Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin from Russia. “I just flew to England today, where I met businessmen and lawyers who expressed the wish and availability to assist in holding the World Chess Championship match in London”, Ilyumzhinov said. “So there will be another hosting challenge”. Earlier, Japan, South Korea and Singapore expressed their wish to hold the match.

Pictured left to right: World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway and the President of the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov. Photo © Mikhail Metzel/TASS.

Coming of Age Day

東京 (Tokyo), Japan: Women ride a roller coaster after attending a ceremony marking 成人の日 (Coming of Age Day), at the としまえん (Toshimaen) amusement park. Photo: Kiyoshi Ota/EPA.

How Spider-Man Saved Christmas

千葉 (Chiba), Japan: A man in a Spider-Man costume takes a rest at Tokyo Comic Con. Photo: Issei Kato/Reuters.

Not only / but also

Visit in Night, 1951, by 岡上淑子によ (Toshiko Okanoue) A collage work by 岡上淑子によ (Toshiko Okanoue), a Japanese artist who independently developed her style by pasting images from fashion magazines in surreal arrangements. Photo © 2015 岡上淑子によ (Toshiko Okanoue).

Instant poll

Tokyo, Japan: On-Art Corp unveils an eight-metre tall dinosaur-shaped robot, TRX03. Photo: Toru Hanai/Reuters.

Into the Jury Box

The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan) in Tokyo, Japan, has a special exhibition, Toilet!? – Human Waste & Earth’s Future that “invites visitors to get to know their poop, describing the types of excrement humans produce, creative ways to use toilets, how toilets work in space, ideas for recycling our waste and details of sewage systems”. Photo © National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan).

Triskelion

A woman poses in an art installation at a fashion and design trade show at Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan. Photo: Franck Robichon/EPA.

有话好好说 (Keep Cool)

大阪市 (Ōsaka), Japan: Two-year-old female polar bear Icchan hugs an ice cube containing apples to cool herself down on a hot day at 天王寺動物園 (Tennōji Zoo). Photo: The Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

President lays flowers at memorial in Japanese city where U.S. killed 140,000 people in world’s first atomic bombing Barack Obama has become the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima, 71 years after the Japanese city became the target of the world’s first atomic bombing and ushered in a nuclear age he has vowed to bring to an end. In a scene many survivors of the U.S. bombing believed they would never live to see, Obama laid flowers at a memorial to the dead before paying tribute to the people of Hiroshima and calling on humanity to learn the lessons of the past to make war less likely. [Read more].

• Justin McCurry, Barack Obama says memory of Hiroshima “must never fade”, The Guardian, May 27, 2016

Barack Obama lays a wreath in Hiroshima
Photo: Shuji Kajiyama/AP

Hard Discount

Retrace our steps, 2014 Midori Ito is staged in an abandoned supermarket in 浪江町 (Namie City), Japan, inside the Fukushima no-go zone. Nothing here has changed since the disaster happened. The products stored in the supermarket have passed their expiry date for several years now. Ironically, a sign written in Japanese boasts “fresh products”. Photo: Carlos Ayesta and Guillaume Bression.

Future World, perhaps

TeamLab, the Japanese art collective, present an interactive digital art installation entitled Crystal Universe at the Future World Exhibit at the ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands, Bayfront Subzone, Downtown Core, Singapore. Photo: Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images.

Outnumbered

Aoshima, Japan: Cats roam freely in Aoshima, where they outnumber humans by more than five to one. Photo: Aflo/Barcroft Media.

Kawaii

Renaissance woman ... a detail from The Birth of Venus by Tomoko Nagao (2012).

The Spiral

Tokyo, Japan: Artist feebee poses in Japanese painter Shigeki Matsuyama’s art installation Dazzle Room during a fashion and design trade show at Yoyogi National Stadium. Photo: Franck Robichon/EPA.