Team Japan competes during the team free preliminaries of artistic swimming at the 19th FINA World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, June 22, 2022. (Photo by Anna Szilagyi/AP Photo)
Kyuta Kumagai, 10, wrestles with a boy the same age as him, during a training session at Buddy acL Ariake's wrestling club in Tokyo, Japan, August 22, 2020. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)
Viktoriia Onopriienko, of Ukraine, performs during the rhythmic gymnastics individual all-around qualifier at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Friday, August 6, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Ashley Landis/AP Photo)
Hiroto Ishizawa of Japan falls while competing on the pommel horse during qualifications at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia on October 19, 2025. (Photo by Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters)
Those lights are actually bioluminescent shrimp, better known as sea fireflies, or, in Japan, as “umibotaru”. Visible every year from May until the end of October, they live in the sand around very shallow sea water and are often seen floating between the extremes of high and low tides. Here: Bioluminescent sea fireflies glittering like diamonds on the rocks and sand. Okayama, Japan. July 2016. (Photo by Trevor Williams/Jonathan Galione/Getty Images)
Tsukimi Ayano steps out of her house in the village of Nagoro on Shikoku Island in southern Japan February 24, 2015. Tsukimi Ayano made her first scarecrow 13 years ago to frighten off birds pecking at seeds in her garden. The life-sized straw doll resembled her father, so she made more. Today, the tiny village of Nagoro in southern Japan is teeming with Ayano's hand-sewn creations, frozen in time for a tableau that captures the motions of everyday life. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)
Japan is a country full of art. Much of this is housed in museums and galleries, but others are right under our feet. We speak, of Japan’s peculiar obsession with manhole covers. Almost anywhere in the country you can find manhole covers with spectacular grounds, each more beautiful and complex than the previous. In recent years, S. Morita photographer has traveled around Japan and leave us this great gathering on the beautiful and artistic Japanese manhole covers.