Japanese people braced the snow on Sunday to vote in a snap election called by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, whose coalition is predicted to clinch a decisive win.
Opinion polls suggest that Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed almost non-stop for decades, will easily win more than the 233 seats needed to regain a majority in the powerful 465-member lower house.
Heavy snowfall blanketed many parts of the country on election day, including Tokyo and other regions that rarely see winter snow.
"I think it's important to come, so that we can properly take part in politics as well," a 50-year-old woman, who only disclosed her surname as Kondo, told AFP near a voting station in Tokyo.
"Even if it snows more than it does now, I still plan to go," she added.
"I struggled to find a way to the ballot box as snow was accumulating around it, and it was a pain to arrive here with bad road conditions," a man in his 70s in Aomori in northern Japan told public broadcaster NHK.
"I wish the election was held in a snowless season," he said. It is the first time in decades that Japan holds a general election in snowy February.
Pollsters even suggest, with some caution due to undecided voters and wintry weather, that the LDP and its coalition partner could secure 310 seats needed for a handy two-thirds majority.
This would be the best result for the LDP since 2017 when Takaichi's mentor, the late ex-premier Shinzo Abe, achieved a similar result.
Takaichi was a heavy metal drummer in her youth, an admirer of Britain's "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, and on the ultra-conservative fringe of the LDP when she became leader in October.
She has defied pessimists to be a hit with voters, especially young ones, with fans lapping up everything from her handbag to her jamming to a K-pop song with South Korea's president.
