With the 2020 Tokyo Games dubbed the Olympics to help reconstruct disaster-hit regions, torch relay organizers are tasked with providing a genuine sense of involvement for people still finding their way back to normality.
Starting discussions in February, organizers decided the best way to achieve this was taking the relay through recent disaster-hit areas first, while also ensuring it passes through all 47 prefectures.
One of the cities in the running to host the start of the relay is Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, where more than 3,000 lives were lost in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami and 400 people are still unaccounted for.