Mascots have long been used to front brands in Japan, but Gudetama – a lazy anthropomorphic egg – is a far cry from the cutesy characters typically seen. It now appears on around 1,700 items, boasting its own Twitter feed and pop-up cafés, but how has it won the hearts of people nationwide?

Sake may have waned in popularity in Japan, but the demand for rice wine is rapidly growing elsewhere in the world. The Sake 2020 Project, formed in anticipation of the Tokyo Olympics, is leading the effort to ‘create a better environment to promote sake to foreign customers’.

According to the UN, a third of the world's food goes to waste. Japanese start-up Planet Table plans to begin changing that with the launch of Send, an online ordering platform connecting food producers to restaurants. Can the app help Japan reduce the amount of food it throws away?

It's estimated that Japan is responsible for 18 million tons' worth of food waste each year – up to eight million of which could be edible. And while there are attempts to tackle the problem, historic concerns over safety mean that people are more likely to discard food that’s fine.