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All Seasons

Season 1

  • S01E01 Snow in Japan

    • December 30, 2000
    • Channel 4

    Jon Snow travels to Japan to examine whether the country can recover from the recession and overcome a debt of over £5 trillion. He also questions how drastic reforms, if needed, will affect the traditional way of Japanese life. He travels with journalist Mayu Kamide searching for some answers.

  • S01E02 Teenage Japanese Killers

    • December 30, 2000
    • Channel 4

    This film examines the recent rise in violent crime in Japan. Through individual murder stories it provides an insight into 21st century Japanese society.

  • S01E03 Tokyo Bound: Bondage Mistresses of Tokyo

    • December 30, 2000
    • Channel 4

    This documentary follows Maxx Ginnane, an Australian film-maker, as she goes behind closed doors to meet Japanese mistresses at work.

  • S01E04 The Dream of Garuda

    • December 31, 2000
    • Channel 4

    A convicted rapist, released from prison, pursues an obsession with his victim, seeking her in every woman he meets.

  • S01E05 Virtual Japan

    • January 2, 2001
    • Channel 4

    In this programme, Waldemar Januszczak looks at the latest in Japanese technological innovation and asks if Japan's past can explain its technological present.

  • S01E06 Scenes by the Sea - The Life and Cinema of Takeshi 'Beat' Kitano

    • January 2, 2001
    • Channel 4

    Documentary about the actor, writer and director Takeshi 'Beat' Kitano. Uses interviews with Kitano and colleagues to paint a revealing portrait of his life and cinema.

  • S01E07 Tokyo House

    • January 3, 2001
    • Channel 4

    The Parkinson family, from Wirral in Cheshire, go to live in a Japanese house in the suburbs of Tokyo for a month. They cook and eat Japanese food, work in Japanese jobs, entertain Japanese friends and try to be Japanese family.

  • S01E08 Ah-So Graham Norton

    • January 5, 2001
    • Channel 4

    Graham Norton visits Tokyo where he is the houseguest of the Hoshi family. Graham experiences Tokyo nightlife, para-para discothèques, host bars and the unusual Japanese obsession with country and western line dancing.

  • S01E09 The Bedroom

    • January 6, 2001
    • Channel 4

    A mysterious serial killer preys on the drugged prostitutes at a Japanese brothel.

  • S01E10 Love from Bali

    • January 6, 2001
    • Channel 4

    This programme looks at the new wave of young Japanese people who are heading to Bali seeking pleasure and an escape from the cultural restrictions of Japan itself.

  • S01E11 Tandem

    • January 7, 2001
    • Channel 4

    Drama in which two male commuters on the Japanese subway trade stories which blur the line between fantasy and the reality of their drab, everyday lives.

  • S01E12 Suicide

    • January 7, 2001
    • Channel 4

    This programme looks at the story of Hideo Ebisawa, a devoted executive in a small electronics firm who committed suicide when his company was unable to pay the bills. It also looks at the recent phenomenal rise in Japan's suicide rate and examines the devastating consequences it has had on society.