Tokyo, Japan:

Tourists and residents packed Tokyo’s top cherry blossom spots on Thursday to enjoy the full bloom that has arrived in the Japanese capital later than usual this year because of cold weather.

The elegant dark branches bursting with pink and white flowers — known as sakura in Japanese — spilled over the moat of the Imperial Palace, where people gathered to snap photos or simply take in the view.

“Cherry blossoms are so symbolic and make everything around you feel joyful and beautiful,” Michitaka Saito, 68, told AFP.

“It makes me feel that I’ve made a good start on the year ahead,” said Saito, who makes an annual visit to Chidorigafuchi Park beside the moat in central Tokyo.

Sakura season traditionally accompanies the beginning of the new fiscal year in Japan, representing fresh starts but also the fleeting impermanence of life.

Eiko Hirose, 76, said that enjoying the cherry blossoms with her husband Sadao “means I’m healthy, and he’s good, and we all have a good time”.

“We take it for granted that we can see it next year again, but who knows? Something may happen,” she said.

The Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) declared on Thursday that the country’s most common and popular “somei yoshino” variety of cherry tree was in full bloom, four days later than average for the city.

While the agency attributes this year’s tardy blooms to cold weather, it has raised the alarm that climate change is making the delicate petals appear sooner in the long term.

Last year’s sakura began to flower on March 14 — the joint earliest date on record along with 2020 and 2021 — and hit full bloom on March 22.

“Since 1953, the average start date for cherry blossoms to bloom in Japan has been becoming earlier at the rate of approximately 1.2 days per 10 years,” the JMA says.

“The long-term increase in temperature is thought to be a factor” as well as other reasons such as the urban heat island effect, according to the agency.

Tourism to Japan has been booming since pandemic-era border restrictions were lifted, and an international crowd was also out enjoying the scenery on Thursday.

Kamilla Kielbowska, a 35-year-old from New York, planned her third trip to Japan around the blossoms.

“We arrived here on, I believe, March 23. And I was joking… ‘OK, we gotta go to this park straight from the airport, I cannot miss sakura.'”

But “it was super cold, and no trees were blossoming. And I was a little bit sad, but hoping that I’ll still see them in full blossom before I leave.”

“It definitely lived up to expectations,” she said, calling the sight “marvellous” and “very magical”.

Katsuhiro Miyamoto, professor emeritus at Kansai University, estimates the economic impact of cherry blossom season in Japan, from travel to parties held under the flowers, at 1.1 trillion yen ($7.3 billion) this year, up from 616 billion yen in 2023.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

A theme park based on Japan’s “Dragon Ball” manga franchise will be built in Saudi Arabia’s new high-end tourist attraction of Qiddiya, just outside Riyadh, authorities said Friday.

The announcement comes two weeks after fans of the massively popular and influential series were shocked by news of the death of its creator, Akira Toriyama, aged 68.

The 500,000-square-metre (125-acre) park will allow fans to “live the adventures at the heart of the action, experiencing the journey from the first Dragon Ball series to the latest Dragon Ball Super,” according to a press release by the Qiddiya Investment Company.

First serialised in 1984, “Dragon Ball” is one of the best-selling manga franchises of all time and has spawned countless anime series, films, and video games.

Toriyama’s death this month from a blood clot on the brain sparked an outpouring of grief from around the world, including tributes from French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin.

In a press release on the official Dragon Ball website, authorities in Qiddiya did not give an opening date for the park and also did not say how much construction would cost.

The statement said the attraction would be split into seven themed zones based on the magical dragon-containing balls that are central to the series.

The park will have at least 30 rides and include a 70-metre (230-foot) dragon at the centre of the site, it said.

The Qiddiya “entertainment city” project, featuring high-end theme parks, motorsport facilities, and a safari area, is under construction near the Saudi capital Riyadh. Shares of Toei Animation, which produced the “Dragon Ball” anime series, surged 6.7 percent on Friday.