This is the first in a two-part series on how the nation¡¯s schools continued with in-person classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The upbeat theme song of popular anime series ¡°Lupin the Third¡± reverberated throughout the building of a Tokyo elementary school on a recent balmy afternoon. The music came from a courtyard where a bevy of sixth graders had taken center stage and were playing accordions, metallophones and keyboards ¡ª instruments that don¡¯t generate droplets ¡ª under the mesmerized gaze of an audience of hundreds of schoolchildren.
The performance by the final-year students at Funabori Elementary School in Tokyo¡¯s Edogawa Ward took place under the state of emergency in early March ¡ª just weeks before their graduation ¡ª as a way for them to say thank you to the younger pupils and teachers they would leave behind.
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