When we started TPR, we created Uragawa as an outlet for interesting stories on or from Japan that just wouldn’t fit into Seijigiri, which is a podcast on news and politics, and which we wanted to keep as such. Our goal in producing Seijigiri was and is to let our listeners know what’s going on in Japan, that there’s more to it than unusual pop culture and more to its politics than Prime Minister Koizumi singing Elvis tunes.

With that said, it would be naive of us to pretend that things outside of politics weren’t there and disingenuous of us to pretend that those things never caught our attention.

We’ve noticed as well that understanding what’s going on outside of high politics is also very important to developing an understanding of a country and its culture. Hence, Uragawa. We’ll podcast here when possible and blog here otherwise, but we hope you’ll find the same attention to fact and reason you’ve come to expect from TPR in other areas and will find it entertaining.

If Uragawa seems a little more opinionated or personal than Seijigiri, that’s by design. There are many ways one can check objectivity when dealing with politics, fewer when dealing with the Far Side of the River.

We hope you enjoy it.

- Garrett De Orio and Ken Worsley