TOKYO — It was a scene of normalcy, something friends in New York or London or San Francisco can only conjure in memory: a man and a woman, out for a drink.

Tokyo had already been in a coronavirus state of emergency for more than a week. But through the windows of a narrow restaurant in Roppongi, a popular nightlife district in central Tokyo, I could see them sipping from large beer steins, chatting in non-social distancing proximity.

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Several other patrons waited, face masks pulled down under their chins, while cooks served up battered octopus balls.