Paralympian, nurse, musician: Manami Ito, Japan's show-stealing violinist

Haunting notes stream from Manami Ito's violin as she gracefully draws her bow back and forth, clasping it with her specially designed prosthetic arm. The Japanese musician enthralled a nation with her brief but show-stealing performance at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Paralympics, and playing violin isn't even her day job. The 36-year-old is a qualified nurse and a former Paralympian swimmer who has spent the years since she lost her right arm in a motorbike accident defying her naysayers and overcoming every obstacle before her. "There were always people who told me: 'No, you can't do it. It's impossible,'" she told AFP at her mother's home by a lush green riverbank. "Every time I faced that kind of wall, I thought to myself: 'They are saying that because no one has done it before. So I will do it.'" But that wasn't always the way Ito felt, particularly in the dark days after her accident at the age of 20. "I thought I would confine myself at home for the rest of my life," she admits. "I didn't want my friends or neighbours to see my body, I didn't want them to know what happened to me." It was the sight of her parents "in real pain" at her state that made her rethink...