The picturesque Zao Ski Resort, one of Japan's oldest and most popular ski destinations, is illuminated on February 10, 2007 in Yamagata Prefecture, Tohoku region of Honshu island, Japan. Coniferous trees such as the Aomori white fir lie covered with chrystallised ice and snow (described as “silver frost” or “snow monsters”) and attract visitors. (Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images)

A damaged traffic signal is pictured along a street at a residential area flooded by the Kinugawa river, caused by typhoon Etau in Joso, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan, September 11, 2015. Unprecedented rain in Japan unleashed heavy floods on Friday that tore houses from their foundations, uprooted trees and forced more than 100,000 people from their homes. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

The official name for this tiny speck of land – the size of 12 football pitches – is Hashima, but few call it that. In English, its most commonly used name means “Battleship Island” and, viewed from a certain angle offshore, its silhouette is uncannily dreadnought in nature. It was a mining facility until 1974, when it was abandoned to the elements, before partially reopening as a tourist attraction in 2009. Photo: A decades-old television. (Photo by Mark C. O'Flaherty)

Juri Mitomi, 20, holds a cigarette after a Coming of Age Day celebration ceremony at an amusement park in Tokyo January 12, 2015. According to a government announcement, more than 1.2 million men and women who were born in 1994 marked the coming of age this year, an increase of approximately 50,000 from last year. The increase is also the first since 1995. (Photo by Yuya Shino/Reuters)

College students shout slogans during a pep rally organised to boost their morale ahead of their job hunting in Tokyo, Japan March 1, 2017. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Activists stage a theatrical play where gay people are restrained by others wearing masks depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a protest against Russia's new law on gays, in central London, Saturday, August 10, 2013. Hundreds of protesters, called for the Winter 2014 Olympic Games to be taken away from Sochi, Russia, because of a new Russian law that bans “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” and imposes fines on those holding gay pride rallies. (Photo by Lefteris Pitarakis/AP Photo)

Artist Pyotr Pavlensky sits on the wall enclosing the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry after he cut off a part of his earlobe during his protest action titled “Segregation” in Moscow October 19, 2014. Pavlensky protested against the usage of forensic psychiatry for politically motivated purposes. He cut off his earlobe to demonstrate how authorities could “cut off” an unwanted individual from society by using psychiatric and medical diagnosis to forcefully send a person to a penitentiary hospital, according to Pavlensky. (Photo by Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)

South Korean bee farmer Ahn Sang-Kyu protests Japan's claim of sovereignty over disputed islets May 2, 2006 in Seoul, South Korea. Ahn, a local bee farmer, released over 140,000 bees and attracted them to his body to protest Japan's sovereignty claims over a tiny group of islands located off the east coast of South Korea, called the Dokdo islets by the Koreans and Takeshima by the Japanese. The volcanic islets located about 90 kilometres east of South Korea's Ullung Island, have been a source of diplomatic friction between South Korea and Japan for years. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)