Hometown Stories - Season 11 / Year 2021

A newcomer to a small mountain hamlet called Kurata turns heads, because nearly everywhere she goes, she runs. Her name is Yuki, and she has come to help revitalize the aging community. Young and energetic, she's full of ideas for doing this. But her plans lack one key element -- getting residents involved. Figuring out how to do this forces Yuki to rethink her approach. As she struggles to find a way, she runs.

Minami Shintaro is a young man with a special knack of attracting people. He runs a guest house in Seto City in central Japan, renowned as a major producer of ceramics. But the Covid-19 pandemic led to a sharp decline in guests. Also, an annual ceramics festival, the town's biggest tourist attraction, was canceled. But he never gives up. He launched a project called "Seto People-Tour" to revitalize the community by connecting people while avoiding close-contact settings. Life during the pandemic calls for distance between people, yet he is trying to connect them. We wanted to know why.

Yamazaki Takashi runs Bethesda, a support center in Hokkaido Prefecture for people in need. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he has noticed a trend -- more people in white-collar jobs are in dire straits. Bethesda's late founder, Manabe Chikako, began the nonprofit in 2009 to save as many lives as possible. Takashi continues that mission, providing a safe haven with 3 free meals a day, so people can make a fresh start. We follow Takashi for 5 months as he works to help residents, and receives shocking news about the founder's son.

Nagano Haruki and Okuda Sho, 17-year-old high-school boys in central Japan, have been writing to each other about once every 2 weeks since 2017. It started when Haruki developed a hard-to-cure eye condition and transferred to a school for visually impaired students. Separated from his best friend, Sho wrote a letter to Haruki so they could stay connected. Now, they both have smartphones, and send text messages to their other friends, but the 2 boys communicate exclusively by letter. We wanted to know why.

When people leave a town behind, what happens to its memories? The coast of Okuma Town is home to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, which melted down after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Residents were forced to evacuate but not all of them have been able to return. As long abandoned structures are demolished, a dedicated team is working to salvage and preserve the everyday objects that capture the community's long, rich history.

Yasui Hiroyuki is a junior-high school teacher and rugby coach in western Japan. With his motto "One Team," he encourages students to unite to cope with the coronavirus pandemic. His school was closed the day after the entrance ceremony. Forced to stay at home, new first-year students couldn't get to know each other. When the school reopens in May, Hiroyuki suggests an interclass competition as a way for students to bond, getting them to suggest events and ways to practice. Here is a selfie-style video diary of a passionate teacher and his students.

Throughout his long career in business - and now as the head of a Japanese university - Deguchi Haruaki has faced setbacks and challenges. As a result, he's developed a unique perspective on dealing with adversity and focusing on the here and now. Many younger people turn to him for advice, which he offers through books and magazine articles as well as social media. Now, a young director is also seeking help with her own questions about handling life's uncertainties.

Hirosaki Park in northern Japan is one of the country's finest cherry blossom sites. Nowhere in the world do cherry trees bloom so fully and close together. The overwhelming density of the striking pink flowers is a result of the region's distinctive pruning techniques. Showers of petals in the wind and the blanket of fallen blossoms that covers the park's moats, are astonishing to see. Using drones as well as high-speed and time-lapse filming techniques, the program is shot with high-definition cameras capturing the beautiful, shifting life cycle of the flowers.

Galapagos is a welfare facility in Saga Prefecture that provides after-school services for special-needs children. It even accepts children with problematic behaviors who have been refused by other facilities. The founder Koyanagi Yukari is determined that no child will ever be turned away. The program spends a month looking at the challenges and joys faced by the children and their parents.

Ostomates are people who, owing to illness or disability, need a bag attached to their abdomen to collect bodily waste. Currently, there are around 210,000 ostomates in Japan, but not many people know about them. Emma Otsuji Pickles is determined to change that. She has posed for photos in a swimsuit and has negotiated an agreement with a pouch maker to be their ostomate model. This program follows her efforts to give ostomates encouragement and create a better environment for them by becoming an open "cool" figure herself.

For 25 years, Murabayashi Shingo has been a legend in the kitchen of a high school cooking class. An outstanding teacher and harsh taskmaster, he's helped generations of young cooks gain the skills they need to thrive in the high-pressure kitchens of the finest restaurants. As he nears retirement, his students get one more chance to learn from him, creating perfect Osechi, the traditional New Year's feast. With blood, sweat and a few tears, his last class learns what it takes to succeed.

At any age, a fresh hairstyle can connect us with our inner radiance. A team of hairdressers in Toyama Prefecture visits elderly people who are physically incapable of going to a salon. They create the styles that their customers want and brighten their spirits. Many of the hairdressers are working moms. Some had abandoned their careers to raise their kids, but this job allows them to balance work and family. We look how the right hairstyle helps bring a spark of joy into people's lives.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in summer 2020, Kyoto Prefecture's 1,000-year-old Gion Festival, held annually around Yasaka Shrine, was facing cancellation. But Kitamura Norio, a devoted parishioner who runs a nearby sushi restaurant, called for part of the festival to go ahead somehow, saying at times like these, people need their deities. Amid the self-isolation caused by COVID, the shrine and the local parishioner group decided to revive a contingency plan for the festival originally conceived after a civil war ended in the 15th century. This program is a record of people behind the 2020 Gion Festival and their efforts to maintain their tradition.

Since long ago, the indigenous Ainu people had lived in harmony with nature, following their own unique culture. But when Japanese settlers began to arrive in their ancestral homeland - now known as Hokkaido - the Ainu had to adapt to the Japanese way of life and began losing their unique culture. Now, a new generation of Ainu brings to light their difficult history and reclaims their language and customs.

Since long ago, the indigenous Ainu people had lived in harmony with nature, following their own unique culture. But when Japanese settlers began to arrive in their ancestral homeland - now known as Hokkaido - the Ainu had to adapt to the Japanese way of life and began losing their unique culture. Now, a new generation of Ainu brings to light their difficult history and reclaims their language and customs.

At age 89, Morita Kazuo, a legendary sushi chef in Kanazawa, central Japan, still attracts customers. With over 70 years of experience, he is deft with his knife and precise in squeezing out measures of rice. His customers can enjoy the delectable combination of fluffy rice topped with fresh fish and seafood. What he cherishes most is heartfelt hospitality. Serving sushi on his palm, he is equally attentive to every customer. The source of this hospitality is a humble desire to give his customers the best possible service. The program looks at the secrets of his craft and the conviction he brings to it.

A group of engineering college students in Japan had a challenging assignment: to build a robot that makes people happy for a prestigious national competition. The COVID-19 pandemic threw many obstacles in their way, including tight schedules and limits on group work. Under these difficult conditions, they began to grow apart. How will they tackle the theme and work as one? What does happiness mean to each of them? This program takes a behind-the-scenes look at a robot contest unlike any other.

Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, is home to a rare sight in this country - 2 baseball teams that bring together children with developmental disorders. Often, these children have a hard time controlling their impulses or their overwhelming emotions. They are considered to have difficulties interacting with others and learning, but, in these teams, they are fully immersed in baseball, a sport they love. The program follows the kids as, through playing baseball, they learn to face up to their challenges with the support of their families and other adults.

This program brings you the stories of 2 dedicated individuals and their everyday struggles and triumphs. Kumehara Keitaro, champion of the Japanese card game Karuta, has a highly unusual style that's taken him to the very top. But he falls into a slump right before a key championship match. Will he succeed and keep his title? Organic farmer Ishigooka Daisuke is an agriculturalist by day and a drag queen by night. We take a look at the way he balances these roles, switching with ease between high heels and rubber boots.

The Kuzuryu River is a symbol of Fukui Prefecture, central Japan. Local people know it as "the raging river" for its repeated flooding, but they also appreciate the profusion of its gifts. We filmed along a 5-km stretch in the middle part of the river, which rises in Mount Haku and flows 116km into the Sea of Japan. There, crystal-clear spring water bubbles up from the riverbed, home to a variety of creatures despite being so close to a town. The camera captures the beauty of the river and its environs, including Sweetfish risking their lives to lay their eggs, the elusive Cherry salmon, and willows releasing their fluffy seeds into the wind.

People with severe mental and physical challenges often live in isolation from the world around them, at home or in medical facilities. A unique living arrangement in Fukuoka City is trying to change that. The 4 residents live in a shared house called Hatake no Ie or "House of Fields." Caregivers and others come to help them, and are captivated by their smiles. This is a story of a small house where a variety of people interact and cultivate important insights and relationships.

Identifying as LGBT+, Fujiya Ami doesn't want to be categorized as either male or female and has no romantic feelings for others. After working in Tokyo as a "woman," Fujiya couldn't go on pretending and moved to a small community in western Japan. Faced with a shrinking population, the community welcomed Fujiya as a new young addition, but many were surprised that Fujiya has no desire to marry. Preferring to deal with others on the basis of personality rather than gender, Fujiya finds the own way to live in a rural area where traditional gender identity remains strong.

The population of Kuma Village was already shrinking before disaster struck in 2020. Torrential rains and flooding made the village uninhabitable, forcing residents to evacuate. As the community struggles to rebuild, it faces some key questions: Will reconstruction happen quickly enough? And with the region and the world experiencing record amounts of rain, will residents ever feel safe there again? We follow one village's efforts to cope with a difficult and potentially life-changing dilemma.

The Toyosu Market plays a key role in Japan's rich food culture. Through its doors pass vast quantities of fish and seafood, some of which are bought by Tokyo's most renowned restaurants. But the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many of those establishments to close, and left wholesalers struggling. We follow the efforts of one 4th-generation tuna merchant to keep his business afloat, while meeting the needs of his employees and their families.

Matsuzaki Atsuko, 94, a former professor of culinary science in southwestern Japan, is a regional culinary specialist known for her pressed mackerel sushi and other dishes normally enjoyed by a large group of family and friends. Her dishes are based not on intuition but on culinary and nutritional research. Her philosophy is: "Food is life. It warms the heart, unites the family." But advancing age and the coronavirus pandemic have made it hard for her to do what she hopes to do. The program follows her as she continues to take on challenges such as writing about her memories of eating together and videotaping her recipes to pass down to the next generation.

In March 2021, the Akita Rinkai Railway Line made its last run and a familiar sight disappeared from the streets of Akita Prefecture. The freight line was only 5.4 kilometers long and operated just 3 days a week. After supporting local industry for 50 years, it couldn't adapt to the times. We look at the railroad's final days, interviewing the workers who kept it running safely, and the residents for whom the train and its familiar whistle were important features of everyday life.

Kuroi Akio had always hated his father. Keijiro was physically strong, but a shell of a man who needed help with everyday tasks. At the age of 20, Keijiro faced the horrors of war. Photos taken just after he joined the army show him full of energy. What changed him? What did he experience on the battlefield? Three decades after his death, Akio set out on a journey to retrace his father's footsteps. We focus on one man's efforts to heal the scars it left behind.

A little workshop in Minokamo City, central Japan receives countless requests from across Japan to repair damaged clothes. Kaketsugi, or invisible mending, is a technique for repairing holes or tears in fabric. The shop is run by a father-and-daughter team: Kataoka Tesshu, with 40 years of experience as a craftsman, and his daughter Goto Yoshiko. The pair research weaving patterns in fabrics and are able to use a needle to accurately weave threads into gaps as small as 0.1 millimeter. The program follows them as they restore the cherished garments they receive.