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Commercial whaling has restarted in Japan after a 31-year hiatus.

Boats have embarked on their first commercial hunts since 1988 when the country switched to so-called research whaling.

It comes as Japan's six-month notice to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) took effect on Sunday.

The Fisheries Agency said the catch quota for the rest of the year is set at 227 whales, fewer than the 333 Japan hunted in the Antarctic in recent years.

The quota was due to have been released last month but is believed to have been postponed to avoid criticism during the G20 summit in Osaka.

As the boats left port, whalers, their families and local officials in two major whaling towns, Shimonoseki in southwestern Japan, which is Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's electoral constituency, and Kushiro in the north, celebrated the fresh start, hoping for a safe return and a good harvest.

"We hope commercial whaling will be on track as soon as possible, contribute to local prosperity and carry on Japan's rich whale culture to the next generation," deputy chief cabinet secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura said.

Until now, Japan has been able to kill a few hundred, mainly minke, whales in the Antarctic and southern hemisphere under the guise of scientific research, under IWC rules.

By withdrawing from the IWC it is no longer able to do that, but will now have no limits on the number of whales it kills in its own territorial waters and exclusive economic zone.

While the resumption of commercial whaling is condemned by many conservation groups, others see it as a move by the Japanese government to allow the faltering industry to gradually die out.

Whaling in Japan involves only a few hundred people and accounted for less than 0.1% of total meat consumption in 2017, according to the latest government data on food sufficiency.