NHK Documentary on My Research

Click the photo to view the English version of the documentary

A select number of colleagues researching subjects related to Japan have appeared on the NHK program 'Outside in Lost in Academia'. It was an honor to have my own research included in the program. The Japanese version was on NHK in Japan in December 2025 and again in January 2026. The English version has been available online from March and can be found by clicking on the photo within the blog post here. I will include the Japanese version through a link at the bottom but you need to register for an online NHK account which may be cumbersome.

The program focuses on my research related to 'shotengai' shopping areas in Japan. These centers of social interactivity are venues for not only anime culture and cosplay, but also Japanese society in general. It was an interesting approach to conducting research, usually you start with a hypothesis and start from there. In this case, the director and I spoke over the phone several times for perhaps a total of 20 hours. From there, we hammered out a plan to visit 3 shotengai in the Tokyo area. I also was able to persuade the director come to Kyoto for the Mechademia conference in May 2025. The academic conference is such an important part of the work that we do as researchers and Mechademia is personally significant. Unfortunately, I was not able to talk the director into including Osu Kannon shotengai among the 3 shotengai. You win some and you lose some.

I provided the documentary team with a number of photos from when I was younger but only a couple made the cut. At the 7 minute point the documentary includes a photo of me and my 2 brothers when I was 9 years old. It was the first day of school for us in a new elementary school. Mike and I are dressed in lederhosen that mom had bought for us as souvenirs from the trip to Europe to visit family that we had just returned from over the summer. It's a nice memory and I remember I really liked the Star Wars lunch box I was holding. One more photo was at the 20 minute mark of the documentary. It is of me with longer hair at a Mexican themed party when I was a student at UBC.

For friends and family who I haven't seen in a while, it's a nice way for them to see what I'm up to and find out a bit about an interesting part of my research, Japanese 'shotengai' or traditional shopping areas. Here is the link to the Japanese version:

https://www.web.nhk/tv/pl/series-tep-PG7NRXY592