THE 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will do more than bring nations closer together if authorities in the capital have their way.

The Tokyo Government hopes the sporting extravaganza will lead to a spike in marriages among young people and an eventual uptick in the low birthrate.

And to this end it has produced a video to raise public awareness of two issues that Governor Yuriko Koike regards as among the most fundamental facing Japan.

The video ends with the voice of Koike asking, “Who will you watch [the Games] with?”

There are three versions of the video, in durations of 15 seconds, 30 seconds and a full minute.

In the longest version, a young man and woman who are the main characters reflect on the fact that their grandparents tied the knot after taking in an event at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

They are also influenced by observing close friends who marry and start raising a family. The video’s closing scene is of the pair thinking about marrying themselves.

The metropolitan government also plans to stream the video in subways, at movie theaters and on large displays installed at major entertainment districts until March or so. It is paying about 30 million yen (US$273,000) for the project.

A national survey conducted in 2015 found that about 90 percent of single men and women between the ages of 18 and 34 intend to marry at some point.

Figures for Tokyo made for depressing reading, however. Statistics show that 19.2 percent of women living in Tokyo never marry by the age of 50, the highest of any prefecture in Japan. Among men, the comparable figure was 26.06 percent, the third-highest among the nation’s 47 prefectures.(SD-Agencies)