For better or worse, the holidays bring people together.
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to gather at the famed 'scramble crossing' in front of Shibuya Station in Tokyo on Monday to count down the last moments of the year together.
However, problems can arise when so many gather in the same place at the same time. At Halloween, 13 individuals were arrested for alleged groping, theft and assault in Shibuya Ward in the capital after a massive crowd descended on the neighborhood, forcing the local police department to dispatch several hundred officers to subdue the chaos. Volunteers spent hours the next morning cleaning up piles of litter left behind by revelers the previous night.