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They are designed to encourage landlords and hospitals to treat gay couples the same way as married ones.

However, the documents do not provide the same legal status as marriage.

BBC Tokyo correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes says campaigners are welcoming "a small step forward in a deeply conservative country".

Younger people in Japan generally support gay rights but the prime minister has previously urged caution over changing the law.

Hiroko Masuhara, 37, and Koyuki Higashi, 30, were the first to register their partnership in Shibuya district.

Ms Higashi, an actress, told reporters she hoped the measure would spread across Japan and eventually lead to same-sex marriage being legalised.

Japan does not have any national legislation specifically banning discrimination against gay people. Couples complain of being blocked from tenancies and prevented from visiting loved ones in hospital.

"I hope the day will come soon when there will be equality in society," Ms Higashi said, according to the AFP news agency.

Shibuya district mayor Ken Hasebe, congratulated the couple.

"It took a long time to get to here," he said.

Another wealthy district of the capital, Setagaya, has also started to offer the certificates.

Setagaya's mayor Nobuto Hosaka issued five same-sex couples with the papers on Thursday afternoon, according to the Kyodo news agency.

Mobile phone networks NTT DoCoMo and KDDI have previously said they would offer their family discounts to same-sex couples who provide a certificate.

Popular Japanese actress Satomi Ishihara is set to marry her non-celebrity boyfriend within the year, her agency said Thursday.

"I felt confident I could overcome any difficulties with him while sharing various experiences," the 33-year-old actress said in a statement.

The would-be groom, a company employee also in his 30s, was introduced to Ishihara through a married couple who are mutual friends, her agency said.

Ishihara, who won the grand prix of a scout competition hosted by talent agency HoriPro Inc. in 2002, debuted the following year as the heroine of the NHK television serial "Teru Teru Kazoku."

She also appeared in the live-action film adaptation of the popular manga series "Attack on Titan," and the 2016 movie "Shin Godzilla."

Most recently, she played the leading character in the television series "Unsung Cinderella."

Ishihara was selected in 2016 to be the face of Tokyo Metro's "Find My Tokyo" campaign, and has also been appointed as one of the official ambassadors of the 2020 Summer Olympics torch relay.

WOWOW revealed on Thursday that Airi Matsui (right in image below) has joined the cast of the live-action series of Masami Yuuki's Hakubo no Chronicle manga. Matsui plays Akari Fusegi, a newly hired Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare official.

West idol group member Tomohiro Kamiyama (seen left in image above) stars as Kai Yukimura.

The series will premiere next year.

The supernatural mystery story follows Yukimura, an okinaga who looks 18 but is actually 88 years old. He joins a newly hired Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare official named Akari Fusegi to stop a serial killer — and seek revenge. Yukimura's former lover was murdered by the so-called "Sheep Killer," who only murders on Christmas during the Year of the Goat every 12 years. The long stretches between the killings means that only an okinaga like Yukimura could be the culprit.

Kazuhiro Nakagawa (live-action Double, "Godzilla vs. Hedorah") and Gō Sasaki are directing the series, with scripts by Shōta Koyama (Jashin no Tenbin), Taiki Yamazaki (AIBOU: Tokyo Detective Duo, Ultraman Blazar), and Shiori Tanaka. Harumi Fuuki (Forest of Piano, Miss Hokusai, Lonely Castle in the Mirror, The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes) is composing the music.

Yuuki launched the manga in Shogakukan's Weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine in August 2013 as his first weekly series in 10 years. Shogakukan published the manga's 11th and final compiled book volume in 2017.

Yuuki launched the Shinkurō, Hashiru! (Shinkurō, Run!) manga in Shogakukan's Monthly! Spirits in January 2018, and it is ongoing.

Yuuki's Tetsuwan Birdy Evolution (Birdy the Mighty Evolution) series ran from 2008 to 2012 in Weekly Big Comic Spirits. The series is a sequel to his Tetsuwan Birdy (Birdy the Mighty) manga remake that ran in Shogakukan's Weekly Young Sunday and Big Comic Spirits magazines. The manga versions of Birdy the Mighty have not been released in North America, but Central Park Media and Funimation released the various anime adaptations, and Viz Media released some of Yuuki's Mobile Police Patlabor manga.

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