Deep Dive, a podcast that goes below the surface of Japan

With stay at home orders around the world, in spring many people turned to Animal Crossing to escape the mundanity of housebound life.

DEEP DIVE / RECULTURED Dec 22, 2020

How has COVID-19 changed Japan's pop culture? Episode 2: Isolate

by Oscar Boyd, Patrick ST. Michel, Alyssa I. Smith and Shaun McKenna

STAFF WRITERS

When COVID-19 brought about a stay-at-home spring, Animal Crossing provided us with a digital island escape. In Episode 2 of Recultured, we look at what happened when the world was made ...

DEEP DIVE / RECULTURED Dec 21, 2020

How has COVID-19 changed Japan's pop culture? Episode 1: Collapse

by Oscar Boyd, Patrick St. Michel, Alyssa I. Smith and Shaun McKenna

STAFF WRITERS

In Episode 1 of Recultured, we look at how 2020 ground to a halt through the lens of "Terrace House," and hear from stars of the show about its dramatic ...

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden delivers a speech in front of people affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, at Sendai Airport on Aug. 23, 2011.

DEEP DIVE Dec 2, 2020

Episode 75: What will a Joe Biden presidency mean for Japan?

by Oscar Boyd and Sheila A. Smith

staff writers

Sheila A. Smith joined us from Washington earlier this week to give her take on what a Biden presidency might mean for Japan going forward.

Pre-pandemic, tourists walk along Matsubara-dori street approaching Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto.

DEEP DIVE Nov 25, 2020

Episode 74: Reimagining Japan's post-pandemic tourism industry

by Oscar Boyd and Alex Kerr

STAFF WRITERS

International travelers to Japan increased from 8.6 million in 2010 to just shy of 32 million in 2019. Then came 2020. Now, with the pandemic reducing international tourism to near ...

DEEP DIVE Nov 18, 2020

Episode 73: Japan's third wave of COVID-19

by Oscar Boyd and Gearoid Reidy

Staff Writers

Gearoid Reidy, a senior editor at Bloomberg, joins us to discuss whether we might see a new state of emergency and the hope provided by the recent news about vaccines.

Hisae Kawamura sings an Ainu folktale at the Kaneto Kawamura Ainu Museum in Asahikawa, Hokkaido.

DEEP DIVE Nov 11, 2020

Episode 72: Preserving the endangered Ainu language

The Ainu language has been declared critically endangered by UNESCO, with few people left alive today who speak it. The Ainu are Japan's indigenous population and Japan Times contributor Mara Budgen ...

Destress and detox: According to Kota Shimomura, it’s more than just CBD intrigue that has drawn in droves of customers: It’s his shop’s consultations, which allow Tokyoites to release their stress.

DEEP DIVE Nov 5, 2020

Episode 71: CBD — Japan's path to medical marijuana?

by Oscar Boyd and Dan Buyanovsky

STAFF WRITERS

Japan Times contributor Dan Buyanovsky explores Japan's growing CBD industry and whether it offers a path to the legalization of medical marijuana.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi's "Haunted Old Palace at Soma" (ca. 1845-46), in which a sorceress draws forth a giant skeleton to attack a warrior.

DEEP DIVE Oct 28, 2020

Episode 70: Japan's got ghosts

by Oscar Boyd

staff writer

Author, Bram Stoker Award nominee and host of the podcast “Uncanny Japan,” Thersa Matsuura joins us to share her fascination with the Japanese supernatural.

DEEP DIVE Oct 21, 2020

Episode 69: Why we should be celebrating Japan's tattoo culture

by Oscar Boyd and Alice Gordenker

STAFF WRITERS

Japan has an uncomfortable relationship with tattoos, which are associated with the yakuza and the criminal underworld.

Naomi Osaka adjusts her mask after defeating Jennifer Brady in their U.S. Open semifinal on Thursday in New York.

DEEP DIVE Oct 14, 2020

Episode 68: Naomi Osaka — seven matches, seven masks, seven names

by Oscar Boyd and Joel Tansey

STAFF WRITERS

News editor Joel Tansey discusses the impact of Naomi Osaka’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement both in the U.S. and Japan, and what a new wave of activism ...