The eighth annual Nipponbashi Street Festa stamped Osaka March 20, 2012 (Nipponbashi is Osaka’s geek district – much like Akihabara is for Tokyo). Cosplayers turned up in colourful outfits, dressing as characters from their favourite manga, anime, and video games. The street was closed to cars, and otaku flooded the streets, snapping pics, cosplaying, and hanging out.

Vanessa, thirty-five, had three children with an abusive husband. She “lost her mind, started doing heroin”, after losing the children, who were taken away and given to her mother. The drugs led to homelessness and prostitution. She grew up on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, but now spends her time in Hunts Point, “trying to survive everyday. Just doing whatever it takes”.

Hirari Ikeda, a well-known Harajuku street fashion personality, on the street in Shibuya. (Photo by Tokyo Fashion)

“At her job, Maria Torero cares for sick human beings. At home, she lavishes love on slowly dying cats – 175 of them at last count. The 45-year-old nurse has turned her two-story, eight-room apartment into a hospice for cats with feline leukemia, scattering it with scores of feeding dishes and at least two dozen boxes litter boxes. Some have suggested she shelter healthy cats instead. “That's not my role”, she told The Associated Press. “I'm a nurse. My duty is to the cats that nobody cares about”. She said that “people don't adopt adult cats, especially if they are terminally ill”. – Franklin Briceno via Associated Press. (Photo by Martin Mejia/AP Photo)

U.S. Air Force pilots with the Thunderbirds perform the calypso pass maneuver in F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft during a practice session prior to the Gunfighter Skies air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, September 19 and released September 24, 2014. (Photo by Tech. Sgt. Manuel J. Martinez/Reuters/US Air Force)

A People's Liberation Army (PLA) commando jumps through a fire hoop part of an exercise during an open day event at the Ngong Shuen Chau Barracks, the PLA navy base in the territory, in Hong Kong, China, 01 July 2015. Thousands of visitors attended the PLA open day yesterday and today to mark the 16th anniversary of the handover from British rule. (Photo by Jerome Favre/EPA)

A photographer takes pictures near an inflated Master Yoda character hot air balloon during the 33rd annual QuickChek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning at Solberg Airport Friday, July 24, 2015, in Readington, N.J. The festival which runs through Sunday, July 26, 2015, will feature as many as 100 balloons, including many large, shaped balloons of Darth Vader, an American Flag, a giant whale, a Panda Bear, and a baby dinosaur. (Photo by Mel Evans/AP Photo)

A woman holds her umbrella while walking against strong winds as Typhoon Soudelor approaches Taiwan in Taipei, August 7, 2015. Taiwan evacuated hundreds of people from their homes on Friday as the strongest typhoon to threaten the island in two years churned towards it and was expected to make landfall early on Saturday. (Photo by Pichi Chuang/Reuters)