Love is all around at this time of year, but on Valentine's Day in Japan it isn't so evenly distributed. The festival of romance has long suffered from a gender imbalance here: Feb. 14 is traditionally a day for women to give presents to men — not just their partners, but also often fellow students, coworkers, family members or other hangers-on (such gifts are aptly termed giri-choko, or "obligation chocolates").
A month later, the fellows are expected to repay in kind, on what's known as White Day — a festival that might feel more meaningful if it hadn't been instituted by the National Confectionary Industry Association in 1978.
Maybe that's why Japanese men tend to look forward to Valentine's Day more than their female counterparts. In a recent survey of more than 3,000 people in their 20s and 30s, two-thirds of men reported that they were expecting love to bloom on Feb. 14; in contrast, nearly half of the women answered that they weren't.