Hundreds of Japanese and Filipinos have come together to remember people who died in the Philippines during World War Two.
About 200 people took part in the ceremony on Monday, August 15th, the day Japan marks the end of the war.
They gathered at a monument built by the Japanese government outside the capital Manila.
Participants included the relatives of fallen Japanese soldiers, Japanese residents in the Philippines, and Filipinos.
After observing a moment of silence, they offered chrysanthemums to the deceased.
During the closing days of the war, the Japanese military regarded the Philippines as the front line of its homeland defense.
Roughly 500,000 Japanese and about a million Filipinos, including many civilians, died in fierce fighting between Japanese and US forces.
Kiyoko Okamoto from Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, lost her father on the northern Philippine island of Luzon. She said she is visiting the Philippines for the first time.
Okamoto said the trip is an emotional one because she always wanted to offer prayers to her late father in the country where he died.
Source and image: NHK
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