Ayako Maura is collecting world records, not of an athletic kind but of a quirky sort, in an attempt to inject pizzazz into her area.
The 38-year-old graphic designer set up a citizens' group called the Tokachi World No. 1 Project in her quest to energize the Tokachi region in southeastern Hokkaido by organizing events to set Guinness World Records.
In June her group held an event in Obihiro, the area's main city, to win Guinness recognition for the "world's biggest comic foreground."