This is the last part of a five-part series. If you have not yet listened to Rod Serling’s Zero Hour: “Heir Hunters,” part 1, part 2, part 3, & part 4, do so now. The story is a serial, the conclusion makes little sense if you haven’t heard parts 1 to 4.

Rest your eyes. Exercise your imagination.

(Originally aired on Friday, October 19, 1973.)

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A year ago yesterday - August 26, 2006 - we posted the Seijigiri Inaugural Release, thus officially bringing Trans-Pacific Radio, Japan’s first and only podcast on Japanese politics (as far as we know) and Japan’s first attempt at a podcast “station”� to the masses (which would be you.)

Over the past year, Seijigiri has been joined by Shasetsu, TPR News, BizCast Japan, and� TPR Spotlight� in our line-up of regular, original audio releases.� We’ve also put out non-audio releases under “Japan in the News“� and “Rekishi - History.”� This has all been rounded out by Ken Worlsey’s readings of Wallace Stevens,� my twisting of people’s arms into reading stories for TPR’s Festival of Christmas Tales, and a healthy dose of Old Time Radio.� As we turn a year old, we’ve begun trying our hands at sports, in the form of starting another series - this one on Japanese Professional Baseball - and brought on Sam Porter, who’ll tell us what it’s like in a Japanese high school classroom for a Bostonian.

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TPR News is coming soon, as is the second interview with Debito Arudou.  (In case you missed it, the first one is here.)  We’ve also recently welcomed our very own Jimmy Olsen, Sam Porter (except for his not being a kid or a copy boy, that is.  Really he’s just younger than us.)  Sam, a Bostonian, will be keeping us posted as he goes to a Japanese high school for a year.

I didn’t check the news last night and woke up late this morning and was late coming to some interesting news: Defense Minister Yuriko Koike has announced her intention to resign.  She did it at a press conference in India where Prime Minister Abe had recently triumphantly spoken of an Asian “NATO” and inked a free trade agreement, escorted by about 250 wealthy buddies.

As we get original material together, though, here’s a brief rundown of some of what we’ve been reading on other sites:

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This is part 4 of a five-part series. If you have not yet listened to Rod Serling’s Zero Hour: “Heir Hunters,” part 1, part 2, & part 3, do so now. The story is a serial, part 4 makes little sense if you haven’t heard parts 1, 2, & 3.

Rest your eyes. Exercise your imagination.

(Originally aired on Thursday, October 18, 1973.)

Proceed to the final episode.

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Hello TPR listeners, my name is Sam Porter and I will be writing a new monthly column on this site about my experience as a senior exchange student at a Japanese high school between August of 2007 and June of 2008. This column will provide an insider’s view of what Japanese high school feels like from a student’s perspective as well as present issues related to the Japanese education system. For this first installment I thought it would be good to explain who I am and why I’m going to be doing a year of school abroad in Japan.

I grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts (in the USA). Brookline is a small town adjacent to the city of Boston. Much like neighboring Boston, Brookline is an intensely international and political town. Walking through Coolidge Corner or Brookline Village, the two main centers of town, one often hears numerous languages being spoken or encounters some political protest or social demonstration taking place. My first and most influential exposure to Japanese culture occurred during my elementary school years.

I attended the Lawrence School, which hosted Japanese students whose parents were doing graduate studies at local universities. Lawrence’s student body of around 400 students is an amazing 1/3 Japanese. My earliest memories of going to school have always involved Japanese students, the Japanese language, but most of all, Japanese culture. I remember playing soccer in gym class and at recess with my friends Kansuke and Takahiro. Throughout my time at Lawrence I wanted to learn Japanese so that I could understand their culture and their country.

Each year Lawrence celebrated numerous Japanese festivals, and invited traditional Japanese performance groups such as story tellers and taiko drummers to perform at our school. Unfortunately, no Japanese language classes were ever offered. Twice a year the very popular Japanese crafts and food fairs occurred. For these events, all of the mothers of the Japanese students came out in force to transform the school auditorium into a traditional mock open air Japanese market. As an elementary school student, this was an amazing experience.

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“If I ever saw myself saying I was excited about going to Cleveland, I’d punch myself in the face, because I’d be lying.”

20 points if you can recall who is responsible for that quote. That’s right, it was Ichiro (your 20 points are in the mail). Everyone knows who Ichiro is. Why? Because he’s arguably the best position player to have ever played the game of baseball. And that includes all the professional Dominicans, Cubans, Chinese, Australians, Costa Ricans, South Koreans, Americans, Venezuelans, Dutch, Taiwanese, Canadians, Mexicans, and Japanese that have ever endeavored to be the best in the sport.

Maybe the people in Cleveland don’t like Ichiro so much, but the rest of us do. And everyone knows that Ichiro started his professional baseball career in Japan. He played for the Orix Blue Wave in Nippon Professional Baseball’s (NPB) Pacific league. Huh?

Yes, that’s a fair question. Technically, the Orix Blue Wave do not exist anymore. They are now half of the Orix Buffaloes (the other half being the team formerly known as the Kintetsu Buffaloes), and were Ichiro to one day return to Japan to play out the twilight of his career, he probably wouldn’t have any idea as to where his loyalty is anchored.

But I digress: Ichiro is partly the product of the NPB, and even though there has been (and will continue to be) a steady depletion of the brightest talent produced by Japan (think both Matsuis, Matsuzaka, Nomo, Iwamura, Iguchi, Hasegawa, Johjima, and on and on), it is still a league that generates a lot of interest and a wealth of good baseball.

(Read on …)

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BizCast is back from summer break and ready to tackle a host of issues. Co-hosts Albrecht Stahmer and Ken Worsley begin their review of recent headlines by discussing the ongoing battle between Toyota and General Motors and consider how these firms’ strategies are translating into profit.

From there, the discussion moves on to the news that Abercrombie & Fitch intends to move into the Japanese market sometime in 2009. We have heard similar announcements from foreign retail brands such as H&M, and we consider what seems to be a pre-launch marketing campaign that A&F appears to be waging on the streets of Tokyo.

After that, it’s on to condo prices. This week, we learned from the Real Estate Economic Institute that Tokyo condo prices have risen 12.6% against last year to a 15 year high. At the same time, Tokyo condo sales were down 10% in July, and in Osaka they fell 22.6%.

Then we move on to news that the Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry has suspended sales operations at the Venus chain of beauty salons. Albrecht and Ken discuss the similarities that this case has to what has happened with English school Nova, and discuss METI’s ongoing attempts to stand up to firms that show a blatant disregard for consumer rights. Finally, some predictions are made concerning how long Nova will last.

In the Quick Picks section, Ken chooses to discuss the escalation of price wars in the mobile phone industry, and Albrecht elects to focus on Uniqlo’s failed bid for Barneys New York.

Finally, in the Focus Issue, we take a look at the Japanese workplace and how changes there have been portrayed in the media. In particular, a recent Time magazine piece entitled Relax, Japan — the Company’s Buying is discussed. We discuss why the foreign media is often wrong in its assessment of corporate Japan, and how the reality often differs from what is reported outside Japan.

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August 15, 2007

At noon on this day in 1945, people throughout war-weary Japan, from balmy Sapporo, in fear of Soviet invasion, to sweltering Nagasaki, which had felt the brunt of American industrial might, gathered around radios to hear something few had ever heard before - their Emperor’s voice.

The following is one of two quasi-official translations of Showa-tenno’s “Jewel Voice Broadcast.” This one attempts to capture the spirit and formality of the Emperor’s original speech, however, as the Emperor spoke in a formal, archaic Court Japanese (kind of like having his own dialect), a translation both intelligible and capturing the spirit of his words is impossible.

(Read on …)

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First, a brief note to let you know what’s been going on.

The halcyon days of summer are abuzz, overfilled and bursting like the Japanese schoolgirl costumes donned by hefty American lasses, would-be cos-players, I saw in a TV report about about an anime and manga convention in the US. What this means for you, dear readers, is that, while far from dormant, and certainly not soaking up the haze of the lazy days of the sweltering Tokyo summer as much as we’d like, we here at TPR have not been able to stick to our usual schedule, which means TPR News has not been biweekly of late, which you’ve probably noticed.

We hope you’ve noticed and had a chance to read or listen to the other things we’ve put out recently, such as the revival of TPR Spotlight with a two-part interview with Debito Arudou, another well-received Shasetsu, this one on the “Comfort Women” Resolution in the US House of Representatives, or our running of a classic Rod Serling Zero Hour serial in the Old Time Radio category.

We’ve not been resting on our laurels.

So, we hope you’ve been missing TPR News, we hope you know it’s not going to stay away, and we hope you’re glad to see it back.

Without any further ado. . .

In this edition of TPR News: The DPJ tries to roll back a pair of LDP bills and gets set to make the road to the renewal of the MSDF’s mission in Afghanistan a bumpy one; another scandal besets the LDP; Ozawa snubs Schieffer while Koike talks sweet to Gates; the government might do more for hibakusha; the Consumer Confidence Index is down again; Detroit drops along with US car sales; shochu prices rise; TPR uncovers Japan’s connection to the DC Madam case; and more.

(Read on …)

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