Kamo Mphela, a South African dancer and singer performs Amapiano, a South African musical export that has crossed borders and cultural barriers, reaching as far as Japan, during a music concert in Pretoria, South Africa, July 22, 2022. (Photo by Shafiek Tassiem/Reuters)

Tomoka Miyazaki of Japan hits a return against Lin Hsiang-Ti of Taiwan in their women's singles quarter-final match during the Hong Kong Open badminton tournament in Hong Kong on September 12, 2025. (Photo by Peter Parks/AFP Photo)

Kazakhstan, Belgium and Japan compete in the men’s 5000m relay final B during the ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships at the Ahoy Arena on 17 March 2024 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/International Skating Union/Siena awards festival 2025)

A large sand sculpture is seen at the site of Yokohama Sand Art Exhibition – Culture City of East Asia 2014 on July 16, 2014 in Yokohama, Japan. Producer and sand sculptor Katsuhiko Chaen invited artists from around the world including South Korea and China, to recreate the World Heritage and historical buildings in China, Japan and South Korea. The exhibition will be open from July 19 to November 3, 2014. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

A woman holds broken umbrella as a powerful typhoon hits Osaka, western Japan, Tuesday, September 4, 2018. A powerful typhoon blew through western Japan on Tuesday, causing heavy rain to flood the region's main offshore international airport and high winds to blow a tanker into a connecting bridge, disrupting land and air travel. (Photo by Nobuki Ito/Kyodo News via AP Photo)

As pancake day has creped up on us once again, a Japanese chef has combined our favourite things; cute animals and sugar. Keisuke Inagaki has been a chef at his restaurant La Ricetta in Zama City, Japan, for the last 18 years. He rose to Instagram fame from his Pokemon and anime pancake art, and the time around heis created a lifelike animal series. The 46-year-old chef began making pancakes in 2011 to raise spirits after the devastating nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Here: A pancake that looks like a cat, in Zama City, Japan. (Photo by Keisuke Inagaki/Barcroft Images)

Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot “TRX03” performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan November 10, 2016. Stomping and roaring dinosaurs took to the stage in Tokyo on Thursday as part of a presentation for a proposed entertainment park where visitors will be able to see the realistic replicas first-hand. Japanese firm ON-ART Corp. unveiled man-operated robotic models of raptors, an allosaurus and a tyrannosaurus rex, in a performance at a hotel hall. (Photo by Toru Hanai/Reuters)

Kiyomura Co's President Kiyoshi Kimura (C), who runs a chain of sushi restaurants Sushi Zanmai, poses with a 212 kg (467 lbs) bluefin tuna at his sushi restaurant outside Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, Japan, January 5, 2017. Kimura won the bid for the tuna caught off Oma, Aomori prefecture, northern Japan, with a 74 million yen (633,000 USD) at the fish market's first tuna auction this year. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)