Devotees of the small farming village of Bibiclat celebrate the Feast of Saint John the Baptist while covered in banana leaves and mud on June 24, 2025 in Aliaga, Philippines. Known as the “Taong Putik” (mud people), the ritual happens yearly in this small farming village as their own version of expressing their faith and celebrating the feast of Saint John the Baptist whom the survivors of the Japanese occupation in 1944 in their area prayed to for rain to save their fellow villagers. (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

Mayu adjusts Koiku’s kimono, as Koiku wears a protective face mask while posing for a photograph, before they work at a party where they will entertain with other geisha at Japanese luxury restaurant Asada in Tokyo, Japan, June 23, 2020. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

A visitor relaxes in a sleeping module at Tokyo's tube Hotel “Capsule Inn Akihabara” on February 6, 2007 in Tokyo, Japan. The two-square-meter sleep modules are equipped with a TV, Radio and Wireless LAN and are priced at 3500 yen per night. Uptil recently it has mainly been the office workers who stay at such tube hotels when they cannot go home, but recently they are attracting many foreign travellers due to their Japanese style. (Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images)

Japanese researchers have sparked hopes of finding a cure for human baldness after successfully growing hair on hairless mice by implanting follicles created from stem cells, Agence France Presse reports. A picture taken on April 13, 2012 and released by the Tsuji Lab Research Institute for Science and Technology of the Tokyo University of Science shows a hairless mouse with black hair on its back at the laboratory in Noda, Chiba Prefecture. (Photo by Tokyo University of Science via AFP)

A woman holds a hedgehog at the Harry hedgehog cafe in Tokyo, Japan, April 5, 2016. In a new animal-themed cafe, 20 to 30 hedgehogs of different breeds scrabble and snooze in glass tanks in Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district. Customers have been queuing to play with the prickly mammals, which have long been sold in Japan as pets. The cafe's name Harry alludes to the Japanese word for hedgehog, harinezumi. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Women wearing kimonos gather after attending a Coming of Age ceremony on January 8, 2018 in Yokohama, Japan. Coming of Age Day is a Japanese holiday held every January to celebrate people who have reached 20 – the official age of adulthood in Japan. Yokohama city, with almost 37,000 people turning 20 this year, is holding one of the largest events in the country. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

“Memoirs of a Geisha” – For its May 2013 cover story, Elle Vietnam gets inspired by the Japanese-influence of spring collections and Geisha beauty. Model Tian Yi evokes the theme perfectly in a series of images which juxtapose an urban backdrop with the ornate prints and sleek silhouettes of Prada, Dries van Noten, Dior, Thakoon and more selected by stylist Anna Katsanis. Photographer Oliver Stalmans captures the Chinese beauty in this elegant shoot. (Photo by Oliver Stalmans)