Japan’s last pair of pandas have returned to China yesterday, leaving Japan without the lovable bears for the first time in half a century. The twins Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei have an adoring fan base in Japan, where thousands of people flocked to Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo ahead of their departure. China first sent pandas to Japan in 1972, a gift meant to mark the normalization of diplomatic ties between the two neighbors. Images from state broadcaster CCTV, showed the two pandas, Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, arriving in crates in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, where they will stay in quarantine at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda. Xiao Xiao and his sister Lei Lei were born in Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo in 2021.