Allergies already?

Are there allergy/pollen irritants about already?

The Japan hay fever chart shows zero, but this week my eyes have been stinging/itching, blocked nose and sneezing, and seem to have that ol' hay fever feeling.

When does the dreaded season 'officially' start?

Different people react to different substances/pollens, but it seems to have started. I normally don't suffer from hay fever, but like Wed. and Thu. of this week, when it was nice and warm, yes, I had that itchy feeling around the eyes. I've asked an acquaintance of mine, who has hay fever, if she feels it, and she said definitely yes (though she is taking medicine so the symptoms aren't that obviuos). The local weather forecast shows "pollen forecast" too already.

this time of year, it's cedar pollen...it's caused such problems in Japan that the govt will pay landowners to cut down their cedars.
There is not such a concentration of cedars in other places, so even if you have hay fever in the summer you might never have run across cedar pollen in enough quantity to cause a problem.

Minnie,

The weather forecasts have been warning of rising (but still low) pollen counts in the Kanto Region since earlier this month, but I also started getting itchy eyes from Wednesday.

Sure it's already started. I'm not sure which index you are looking at, but the NHK news has been reporting high levels of pollen in the Kanto area all week, and friends of mine have told me that their symptoms have started. Although I'm allergic to other things, cedar pollen appears to have no effect on me at all luckily. I have an American friend who gets such bad hayfever from sugi pollen that he leaves Japan for a month at this time every year- he flew out on the weekend.