Japan's Emperor Akihito steped down from his role after 30 years on the Chrysanthemum throne. The 85-year-old is the country's first monarch to abdicate in 200 years.

The Nai Sumo Baby Crying Festival takes place every year at the Sensoji Temple in Japan. According to tradition, Sumo wrestlers try to provoke the babies' cry to drive away from the demons that are close to them.

There are 1,000 pet cafés in Japan. Visitors say the animals help relieve stress, and the cafés have become a €12 billion industry.

The European Union is holding a summit with Japan in Brussels later today. The high level gathering precedes the G20 meeting, which is to take place in Osaka in June. It also comes less than three months after the EU-Japan trade deal came into force.

It all started as an April Fool, when people took the organiser's joke about a piranha fishing event seriously.

Nissan's former chair Carlos Ghosn says he was a victim of "backstabbing" and a "conspiracy" in a video address showed on Tuesday.

Pear, apricot, peach and other blossoms have bloomed in various parts of China, unfolding the spring season in full.

Thousands of people marked the arrival of spring by flying kites at the Washington Monument in DC over cherry trees in full bloom.

Japan's traditional calendar uses era names tied to the reign of the emperors. The name of the new era is expected to be announced on April 1, ahead of the abdication of Emperor Akihito.

Superfan Naotoshi Yamada, famous in Japan for having been to every Summer Games since 1964, has died aged 92 with an unfulfilled dream of watching the Olympics when it returns to Tokyo next year

Japanese researchers and a private company help Colombian farmers increase their rice production and use less water, using mobile technology.

A robot is drawing worshippers to a temple in Kyoto, Japan, by delivering the teachings of Buddha.

Tanaka lives in a nursing home in Fukuoka City in southern Japan and was born in 1903.

The journey along Kumano-gawa River echoes pilgrimages of emperors and samurais.

In this edition of Global Japan, we look at how Japanese scientists are working with their local colleagues in Bhutan so that traditional buildings in the Himalayan kingdom can better withstand earthquakes.

More than two decades since a devastating earthquake, Focus travels to the Japanese city of Kobe to see how the city has rebuilt itself and find out how it turned the disaster into an opportunity.