Narrative Japan

Japan's mail has halved since 2007 — but 24,000 post offices still stand. So who pays? ▼ About This Episode Seven in the morning, a street corner in a new suburb, and a red post box that a van still visits on schedule...

AI orders grew 15x in Japan — so why are families still lining up for a crane game? ▼ About This Episode Haru's text said "come see the future of shopping." Sakura arrives at a suburban game center and finds it: a line...

Tokyo rents are soaring — so why are young workers happily moving into 9m² loft rooms? ▼ About This Episode At a blood donation drive in Tokyo, Professor Haru notices Sakura scrolling an apartment app between donations...

Japan froze lunch money in 1984 — it took 42 years and an inflation crisis to fix it. ▼ About This Episode In an empty government committee room after hours, a projector still glows with public comments — including one...

Japan beat cavities so well its dentists are now going bankrupt in record numbers. ▼ About This Episode At a public health center just before closing time, Haru and Sakura trace a story hidden inside a brown envelope —...

This Japanese amusement park goes free every time the forecast says 35°C — here's why. ▼ About This Episode At closing time in a half-lit home improvement store, Haru is shopping for hail nets — in August. The reason...

Ramen sales near $6B — yet bankruptcies just hit a record. Why? ▼ About This Episode On a silent catwalk above a car assembly line — where battery packs now sit in place of engines — Haru and Sakura unpack the strangest...

Japan's cutest machines just became critical infrastructure — purikura at 30. ▼ About This Episode Purikura — Japan's photo-sticker booths — turned thirty, and everyone expected smartphones to kill them. Instead, they...

Most "wasabi" isn't real wasabi — and the real thing is quietly vanishing. ▼ About This Episode Midnight, in a shuttered call center. A single phone light still blinks — a voicemail no one ever played — and Sakura finds...

One suitcase on the last train home carries Japan's newest economy — cosplay. ▼ About This Episode On a silent midnight train, Haru and Sakura spot a suitcase with costume fabric caught in the zipper — and follow it...

Japan's oldest room — the dirt-floor doma — may be its most future-proof. ▼ About This Episode In a hushed hospital waiting room — where no one is quite arriving and no one is quite leaving — Professor Haru hands Sakura...

At dawn in Toyosu, a tuna show draws a wall of phones — the oldest marketing there is. ▼ About This Episode Before the tourists arrive, before the sushi counters open, a wholesaler at Tokyo's Toyosu market lifts a blade...

In Japan, a few centimeters of hair became an entire economy. Here's how it happened. ▼ About This Episode A rainy afternoon, a tiny tourist information center in regional Japan, and a lost traveler who just needed one...

Glasses are becoming the next computer — and Japan sits at the center. ▼ About This Episode On a rooftop farm — where city kids touch soil for the first time — Sakura shows up in a pair of glasses with no lenses, and...

Japan is asleep on $560B of secondhand goods. Auctions just woke it up. ▼ About This Episode At three in the morning, a conveyor belt never stops. Used cameras, trading cards, a luxury watch — each parcel a sold lot...