Tokyo's Nikkei stock index has jumped 3.01 per cent as bargain-buying and a weaker yen lifted the Japanese market, following a rise on Wall Street bolstered by strong US corporate earnings.
The benchmark Nikkei 225, which tumbled 7.3 per cent last week, on Wednesday added 420.87 points to finish at 14,417.68, while the Topix index of all first-section shares tacked on 2.68 per cent, or 30.46 points, to 1,166.55.
Bargain-hunting helped drive Tokyo's strong gains, while shares of market heavyweight SoftBank soared 8.50 per cent to Y7,604.
The jump came after Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba - in which SoftBank owns a 37 per cent stake - said fourth-quarter profit more than doubled to more than $US1.3 billion ($A1.39 billion).
"There is some buying in baskets of stocks seen oversold after the steep sell-off we saw last week," said an equity trading director at a foreign brokerage.
The yen declined - which boosts exporters' profitability - as Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the country was on track to reach a 2.0 per cent inflation target as Tokyo works to reverse years of falling prices and tepid growth.
In afternoon trading, the US dollar rose to Y102.25 from Y101.94 in New York on Tuesday afternoon.
Exporter shares soared with TDK jumping 4.05 per cent to close at Y4,615 while Honda gained 2.25 per cent to Y3,533.
The Nikkei's Wednesday gain followed a rise of 0.62 per cent on Tuesday, but analysts warned that the market's upside was less than solid.
"The Nikkei staged a minor bounce on Tuesday, but participation is not at the point where one could say traders are suddenly bullish," said Daisuke Uno, strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.
Chinese data published on Wednesday showed first-quarter growth slowed to 7.4 per cent on-year, its lowest level in 18 months, but it had little impact on the Japanese market.
"The numbers were close enough to be called 'on target', but they're not exerting much influence on Japan shares today," Kenichi Hirano, market analyst at Tachibana Securities, told Dow Jones Newswires.
Investors remain jittery, however, over the situation in Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that it was now on the verge of civil war after the Kiev government sent in the army against separatists in the east of the country.
There are planned four-way talks on Ukraine on Thursday between top diplomats of Russia, the European Union, the US and Ukraine.
Wall Street finished higher on Tuesday after a wild swing lower led by tech stocks that saw the Nasdaq Composite index down nearly two per cent at one point.
US stocks had opened strongly on good results from Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola but then sank, with analysts at the time citing a rise in worries over Ukraine.
The subsequent bounce-back left the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.55 per cent, while the S&P 500 rose 0.68 per cent and the Nasdaq put on 0.29 per cent.
