This is the last in a two-part series on how the nation’s schools continued their in-person classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

While many schools overseas only recently returned to full-time in-person classes, or are still struggling to reopen, in Japan it’s been nearly a full year since elementary, middle and high schools welcomed back their pupils.

This week, with the start of the new academic year, schools in Japan are bracing for the continuation of a raft of restrictions, rules and compromises they have been coming to grips with over the past year as they sought to coexist with the COVID-19 pandemic.